In preliminary accusations that go right to the core of the well-known video-sharing app’s business model, the European Union accused TikTok on Friday of violating the bloc’s digital regulations by implementing “addictive design” elements that cause minors to use the program compulsively.
TikTok has not done enough to evaluate how features like autoplay and infinite scroll potentially affect the physical and emotional health of users, particularly kids and “vulnerable adults,” according to EU regulators’ two-year probe.
The European Commission said TikTok ought to alter the “basic design” of its service.
The EU’s executive branch, the commission, is responsible for enforcing the Digital Services Act, a comprehensive set of regulations that mandates social media companies to safeguard users and clean up their platforms or face heavy fines.
TikTok refuted the charges.
“We will take whatever steps are necessary to challenge these findings through every means available to us,” the business said in a statement, adding that the preliminary findings from the Commission provide a categorically inaccurate and completely meritless image of our platform.
TikTok’s features, including infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and highly personalized recommender systems, “lead to the compulsive use of the app, especially for our kids, and this poses major risks to their mental health and well-being,” Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said at a press briefing in Brussels.
“TikTok’s current measures are just insufficient,” he stated.
The business now has an opportunity to respond to the commission’s conclusions and defend itself.
Regnier said Brussels may issue a so-called non-compliance judgment and impose a punishment of up to 6% of the company’s yearly total revenue if “they don’t do this properly.” The commission was not given a timeline to reach a conclusion.
TikTok and other social media platforms are under pressure to address youth addiction, as evidenced by the preliminary findings.
While governments in Spain, France, Britain, Denmark, Malaysia, and Egypt wish to implement similar policies, Australia has prohibited social media for children under the age of sixteen.
In the United States, TikTok last month settled a historic lawsuit against social media addiction, but two other firms named in the case—Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram—continue to be accused of purposefully harming and addicting minors through their platforms.
Regnier said the majority of the 170 million users of TikTok in the EU are kids.
Citing unidentified data, he said that 7% of kids between the ages of 12 and 15 spend four to five hours a day on TikTok and that it’s “by far” the platform that kids between the ages of 13 and 18 use the most after midnight.
“These figures are really concerning,” he stated.
The commission said that TikTok encourages users to keep scrolling since it always presents them with fresh content, which weakens their self-control.
The report said TikTok disregards indicators of compulsive app use, including how frequently users access the app and how much time minors spend on it at night.
The corporation has not implemented “reasonable, proportionate, and effective” measures to mitigate the risks.
The commission said parental tools need “additional time and skills” from parents, while TikTok’s current time management limits are simple to ignore and “introduce limited friction.”
The commission wants TikTok to change its “highly personalized” recommender system, which provides users with an endless stream of video shorts based on their preferences, disable features like infinite scroll, and implement more effective breaks for screen time, including at night.
TikTok claims that its many features, including personalized screen time limits and sleep alerts, enable users to make “intentional decisions” about how they use the program.
The business added that its teen accounts allow parents to set time limits and encourage them to log off in the evenings.
