European Commission demands TikTok to strengthen protection for minors

"TikTok's addictive design is in breach of the Digital Services Act. This is the Commission's preliminary view after a thorough investigation. Let me give you some statistics. TikTok reaches 170 million users in the European Union. Most of these are children. TikTok is by far the most used platform after midnight by children between 13 and 18. Some 7% of children between 12 and 15 spend between four and five hours daily on TikTok. These statistics are extremely alarming. Why is all of this happening? Because TikTok offers infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and highly personalized recommender systems.

These features lead to the compulsive use of the app, especially for our kids, and this poses major risks to their mental health and well-being. The measures that TikTok has in place are simply not enough. Screen time management and parental controls are not properly working on TikTok. TikTok did not properly assess how its addictive features can harm users, and they did not implement effective measures to mitigate such risks. TikTok now has a right to defend themselves. If they don't do this properly, the Commission may decide to issue a non-compliance decision leading to 6% of the company's global annual turnover as fines," he noted.