The European Fee on Friday accused TikTok of purposefully designing its app to be “addictive,” calling out options corresponding to infinite scroll, autoplay, and push notifications, in addition to its suggestion engine.
In preliminary findings from an investigation that sought to find out TikTok’s compliance with the European Union’s far-reaching Digital Companies Act, the Fee stated the brief video platform didn’t “adequately assess” how its design selections might hurt the well-being of its customers, significantly minors and susceptible adults.
The EU’s government arm stated the corporate disregarded “vital indicators of compulsive use of the app” just like the time customers spend at evening and the way usually customers open it.
“By continuously ‘rewarding’ customers with new content material, sure design options of TikTok gas the urge to maintain scrolling and shift the mind of customers into ‘autopilot mode.’ Scientific analysis reveals that this may occasionally result in compulsive behaviour and scale back customers’ self-control,” the Fee wrote in a statement.
The Fee stated TikTok should change the “fundamental design” of its consumer interface by disabling options like infinite scroll, implementing display time breaks, and altering its suggestion system.
TikTok denied the allegations.
“The Fee’s preliminary findings current a categorically false and completely meritless depiction of our platform, and we are going to take no matter steps are essential to problem these findings via each means accessible to us,” a TikTok spokesperson stated in an emailed assertion.
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June 23, 2026
TikTok does supply screen-time administration instruments and parental controls, however the European Fee stated these instruments don’t do sufficient to scale back the dangers of its addictive design. “The time administration instruments don’t appear to be efficient in enabling customers to scale back and management their use of TikTok as a result of they’re simple to dismiss and introduce restricted friction. Equally, parental controls might not be efficient as a result of they require extra time and abilities from dad and mom to introduce the controls,” the Fee wrote.
The allegations in opposition to TikTok come as social media platforms take care of heightened scrutiny all over the world, with some governments pushing to ban younger customers from accessing social media altogether. In November, Australia mandated social media websites to deactivate accounts belonging to customers beneath 16, and the U.Okay. and Spain are reportedly wanting into related measures. France, Denmark, Italy, and Norway have labored on related age-restriction measures for social media platforms, and in the US, 24 states have thus far enacted age-verification legal guidelines.
TikTok just lately settled a significant social media dependancy lawsuit within the U.S., and it now has time to answer to the European Fee’s preliminary findings. Confirmed breaches of the DSA can face a variety of main sanctions, together with fines of as much as 6% of world annual turnover.
This story was up to date so as to add TikTok’s response.
