The European Commission has opened formal proceedings against Chinese social media platform TikTok after a preliminary investigation into the bloc’s breach of the law on digital services.
The commission’s statement says that TikTok may have breached the law “in areas related to the protection of minors, transparency in advertising, researchers’ access to data, and risk management of addictive design and harmful content”.
Once the proceedings are opened officially, the commission will continue to gather evidence to take further enforcement steps, the statement said.
Commissioner Thierry Breton said on X on Monday:
“Today we open an investigation into TikTok over suspected breach of transparency & obligations to protect minors. Addictive design & screen time limits Rabbit hole effect Age verification Default privacy settings.”
He emphasised that the commission is enforcing the law to make the internet safer for minors.
TikTok’s owner, Chinese company ByteDance, could face fines of up to 6 per cent of its global turnover if TikTok is found guilty of breaching DSA rules.
TikTok said it will continue to work with experts and industry representatives to ensure the safety of young people on its platform, and that it looks forward to the European Commission’s detailed explanation of this work. A TikTok spokesperson said:
“TikTok has pioneered features and settings to protect teens and keep under 13s off the platform, issues the whole industry is grappling with.”
The European Commission said the investigation will focus on the design of the TikTok system, including algorithmic systems that may encourage behavioural addiction and/or create so-called “rabbit hole effects”.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which applies to all online platforms from 17 February, requires, among other things, very large online platforms and search engines to do more to combat illegal online content and risks to public safety.
