The European Commission issued preliminary findings on Friday that TikTok breached the Digital Services Act. Regulators say the platform did not put effective measures in place against the "rabbit hole" effect of its recommender system, which keeps serving users similar videos.
The Commission said repeated exposure to content about sadness, isolation or body image can harm users' mental health. It wants TikTok to redesign the For You feed, rely more on users' explicit preferences, make controls easier to use and test its algorithm regularly. ByteDance, TikTok's owner, risks a fine of up to 6% of global annual turnover unless the issue is resolved.
TikTok said the Commission's statements are "fundamentally inaccurate and distort our platform's architecture." The charges follow February findings over addictive design, and Brussels is separately probing rabbit-hole effects on Facebook and Instagram.