{"id":747718,"date":"2026-02-07T04:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/747718\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T04:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:27:14","slug":"tiktok-accused-of-addictive-design-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/747718\/","title":{"rendered":"TikTok accused of \u2018addictive design\u2019 in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Union (EU) on Friday accused TikTok of violating<\/a> the bloc\u2019s tech laws with its \u201caddictive design\u201d features.<\/p>\n

The preliminary finding from the EU\u2019s executive arm, the European Commission, points to features like infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications, as well as the platform\u2019s \u201chighly personalised recommender system.\u201d<\/p>\n

It argues that TikTok failed to properly assess how these features impacted users\u2019 mental and physical health and mitigate the risks, suggesting its tools for parents and screentime management fall short.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media addiction can have detrimental effects on the developing minds of children and teens,\u201d Henna Virkkunen, the commission\u2019s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Digital Services Act makes platforms responsible for the effects they can have on their users,\u201d she continued. \u201cIn Europe, we enforce our legislation to protect our children and our citizens online.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Digital Services Act is one of two major tech laws enacted by the EU in recent years, establishing new regulations for large online platforms.<\/p>\n

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement the findings \u201cpresent a categorically false and entirely meritless depiction of our platform\u201d and vowed to challenge them \u201cthrough every means available to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company was previously found in violation of the act in October<\/a> for failing to provide researchers with sufficient access to public data, but it avoided a fine with a series of new transparency commitments in December.<\/p>\n

The EU finding comes as TikTok recently settled a case<\/a> accusing it and several other social media companies of intentionally designing their platforms to addict children. Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, also settled shortly before the case headed to trial.<\/p>\n

The trial, which is the first of several set to proceed this year, went forward last week with the two remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union (EU) on Friday accused TikTok of violating the bloc\u2019s tech laws with its \u201caddictive design\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[220548,2000,299,5187,2557,220698,6849,220697,26945,449],"class_list":["post-747718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-addictive-design","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-commission","tag-executive-vice-president","tag-henna-virkkunen","tag-push-notifications","tag-the-european-union","tag-tiktok"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116027460471459014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}