The EU said that TikTok needs to change its “addictive design” or risk heavy fines under the bloc’s digital content rules on Friday, February 6, provoking sharp pushback from the Chinese-owned platform.
In preliminary conclusions of a probe opened two years ago, the European Commission said it found TikTok was not taking effective steps to address the app’s negative impacts, especially on minors and vulnerable adults. If the regulator’s views on TikTok are confirmed, the commission can impose a fine of up to 6% of the company’s total worldwide annual turnover.
“TikTok’s addictive design is in breach of the Digital Services Act” (DSA), said commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier, citing concerns with features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and TikTok’s highly personalized recommender system. “These features lead to the compulsive use of the app, especially for our kids, and this poses major risks to their mental health and wellbeing,” Regnier said, adding: “The measures that TikTok has in place are simply not enough.”
TikTok rejected the commission’s findings, saying they “present a categorically false and entirely meritless depiction of our platform,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We will take whatever steps are necessary to challenge these findings through every means available to us,” the spokesperson said. TikTok will now have access to the EU’s findings in order to defend itself against the claims.
‘Compulsive use’ of TikTok
The DSA is part of a bolstered legal armory that the EU has adopted in recent years to curb Big Tech’s excesses, and, until now, officials had said TikTok was cooperating with the bloc’s digital regulators. The February 2024 investigation was the first opened into TikTok under the DSA, and since then, the bloc’s powerful content moderation law has faced the wrath of the US administration under President Donald Trump.
In presenting the probe findings, Regnier cited what he called “extremely alarming” statistics on the app’s use in the EU. TikTok was “by far” the most used platform after midnight by children between 13 and 18, he said, with 7% of children aged 12 to 15 spending four to five hours daily on the platform. Brussels accused TikTok of disregarding “important indicators of compulsive use of the app,” such as the time minors spent on the platform at night.
It also said TikTok had not implemented effective measures to mitigate risks, taking particular aim at screen time management and parental control tools. Its time management tools were “easy to dismiss,” including by young users, the commission found, while parental controls required “additional time and skills from parents to introduce” them.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen told reporters that “TikTok has to take actions, they have to change the design of their service in Europe to protect our minors and their wellbeing.”
The commission gave examples of what the platform could alter, such as:
- changing the platform’s “infinite scroll,” which offers users an uninterrupted feed
- implementing effective “screen time breaks,” including at night
- adapting its recommender system, the algorithms the platform uses to feed its users more personalized content.
‘Safe by design’
The findings come as several European countries act to curb access to social media for younger teenagers, with officials weighing whether it is time to follow suit at the EU level.
Briefing reporters on Friday, Virkkunen said her priority was to make platforms safe for all users, children included. “Social media should be so safe by design that we shouldn’t have that kind of very high age restriction,” she said.
The EU began a separate probe into TikTok in December 2024 on alleged foreign interference during the Romanian presidential elections. EU spokesman Regnier said earlier this week that TikTok was “extremely cooperative” during that investigation and was taking measures to address the commission’s concerns. He added that while the probe remained open, regulators could monitor how TikTok behaves during other elections.
