The European Commission on Friday accused TikTok of breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA) by failing to stop its For You recommendation algorithm from drawing users into "rabbit holes" of content about sadness, isolation, self-harm and body image. The preliminary findings, first reported by The Record and confirmed by Engadget, mark the first time EU regulators have directly challenged the engagement-based recommendation system of a major social platform.
Brussels says TikTok identified some of these risks in its own assessments but failed to analyze them properly or put adequate safeguards in place. TikTok disputes the findings, calling the Commission's statements "fundamentally inaccurate." If the violations are confirmed, parent company ByteDance could face a fine of up to 6% of its annual global revenue.
Why the EU says TikTok's For You feed creates rabbit holes
The Commission's core argument is that TikTok's algorithm amplifies whatever a user engages with, so repeated exposure to legal but emotionally heavy content can become damaging over time. Officials stressed the case is not about removing content, and that investigators deliberately focused on videos that were neither illegal nor against TikTok's own rules.
"If you get a chain of hundreds or even thousands of videos of the same kind of content, this drives people in what we call a rabbit hole, and this has a negative impact on people's mental well-being," a European Commission official said Friday. The Commission also said TikTok's own tools to break these loops are ineffective: its "dispersion" techniques to diversify the feed are weak, refreshing only helps briefly, and the "not interested" button stops working after a while.
- The investigation began in early 2024 and focused on TikTok's For You feed, not notifications or endless scrolling.
