TikTok May Breach the DSA Over Harmful Content Recommendations

The European Commission has issued preliminary findings that TikTok may have breached the Digital Services Act by failing to adequately address mental-health risks associated with its For You recommendation system. The Commission’s concerns focus on how personalized recommendations can repeatedly expose users to similar content after they engage with it.

According to the Commission, this design may lead users into harmful “rabbit holes,” including repeated exposure to material concerning sadness, social isolation, or body image. Such patterns may pose particular risks to minors and other vulnerable users. The Commission found that TikTok did not sufficiently assess these systemic risks or implement effective measures to reduce them.

The regulator also questioned the effectiveness of TikTok’s user controls. In particular, selecting “not interested” may not adequately alter future recommendations. The Commission indicated that TikTok should give greater weight to users’ explicit preferences, stop using viewing time as a recommendation signal, improve the accessibility of controls, and conduct regular testing of its recommender systems.

TikTok disputes the Commission’s assessment and maintains that its platform provides meaningful user safeguards and controls. The findings form part of the Commission’s wider DSA investigation, which has also addressed alleged addictive design features and the protection of minors’ privacy. If the preliminary findings are confirmed, ByteDance could face a fine of up to 6 percent of its worldwide annual turnover, calculated in euros based on the relevant annual revenue.