The European Commission has taken a major step in its landmark regulatory scrutiny of TikTok, announcing on Friday that preliminary findings from a two-year investigation indicate the Chinese-owned video platform is in breach of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) due to its addictive design.

The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said its probe — opened formally in February 2024 — shows TikTok’s core features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and a highly personalised recommendation system encourage compulsive use, particularly among children and vulnerable adults. Regulators argue TikTok has failed to properly assess or mitigate the risks these design elements pose to users’ physical and mental well-being, a key requirement of the DSA.

To comply with the bloc’s digital safety rules and avoid potential hefty fines of up to six percent of its global annual turnover, EU officials have outlined a series of changes they expect TikTok to implement, including limiting or disabling the platform’s “infinite scroll” feature to interrupt continuous engagement, introducing mandatory screen-time breaks—particularly during overnight hours—to curb compulsive usage, and reworking its recommender algorithm so that it is less aggressively geared toward keeping users constantly engaged.

EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen stressed Thursday that TikTok must adapt its design in Europe to better protect minors and other users or face enforcement measures.
The Commission also criticised TikTok’s existing safety tools, saying screen-time management and parental controls are easy to dismiss or hard for parents to use effectively, and thus insufficient to safeguard young users.

In a sharp rebuttal, TikTok labelled the Commission’s preliminary findings as “categorically false and entirely meritless”, saying it will challenge the conclusions through all available legal avenues. The company argues it has been cooperating with EU regulators and is committed to user safety.
Despite that challenge, the EU’s actions mark a significant escalation in regulatory pressure — the first time a major global platform’s core engagement design has been deemed potentially unlawful under the DSA.

The TikTok investigation is just one element of the EU’s wider push to enforce its landmark tech rulebook. Earlier DSA probes found TikTok and other platforms in breach of transparency obligations and data access requirements, prompting commitments for better ad repositories and data openness.
Separately, TikTok has previously been fined by European privacy authorities — including a €530 million penalty for illegal transfers of user data to China — further highlighting regulatory friction over data protection and platform safety in the bloc.

Under EU procedure, TikTok will be given access to the Commission’s files and the opportunity to formally respond before any final non-compliance decision is taken. If the breach is confirmed, regulators could impose fines based on the duration and severity of the violations.

The case also has wider implications: human rights groups and digital safety advocates have urged Brussels to enforce the law strictly, saying it could set a precedent for how social media platforms worldwide design their systems to protect young users.

The EU’s preliminary ruling against TikTok over “addictive design” represents a watershed moment in digital regulation, reflecting heightened scrutiny over the psychological impacts of social media and the enforcement muscle of the Digital Services Act. TikTok has pushed back strongly, setting the stage for a high-stakes legal and policy clash in Brussels. (ILKHA)