"EXPLAIN THIS FUN GAME!"
"Well we wanted to make a fun game, so we made it fun."
"THAT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!!"
"explain this non-fun, stress-inducing addiction generator"
"well, we wanted to make a lot of money with incredibly low effort, so we just found out how to best psychologically manipulate users into being unable to leave and stress them into giving us money while they're there in various ways."
"wait why was this not already illegal"
The difference to a game is that a game is first and foremost designed to be entertaining and the user starts playing and stick around with it because they like the entertainment. An addiction to a non-malicious game could be considered like an addiction to good food. Not great, but you're addicted to what you like. Some games (and foods) are more addictive than others, and some games are particularly malicious and are occasionally struck down against or hung out for their methods, but it's overall seen as okay.
These apps are not meant to be entertaining. They use stress, FOMO or outright manipulation to make you return. This addiction is more like being addicted to cigarettes. One can argue whether even self-harm should be up to the individual, but no sane individual would argue that cigarettes are good or that tobacco companies are anything other than evil. If the cigarette was invented now, would we have allowed them to proliferate?
Drawing the line is hard, and I don't like others making decisions for me, but I also don't like society forcing you to join an abusive platform as you'd otherwise miss out on whatever basic societal functions people put there, so enforcing that platforms play nice seems fair.
And besides:
> The app is called TikTok Lite and offers the chance to "to complete challenging tasks and earn great rewards!"
> Tasks include watching vids, liking content, or following other users. Rewards include Amazon vouchers, PayPal gift cards, or TikTok's in-app currency that can be used to tip other members.
Is this a “game”? Really?