The European Commission has told TikTok that its For You feed breaks EU digital rules, because the recommendation system keeps serving users more of the same videos even when those videos concern sadness, isolation or body image. In preliminary findings issued on Friday, the Commission said TikTok failed to assess how its algorithm pulls people into harmful ‘rabbit holes’ and failed to put in place measures that actually stop them. TikTok now has the chance to reply before any final decision, but if the findings stand, the company faces a demand to redesign the feed and a possible fine of up to 6% of its worldwide annual turnover.
What the Commission found
The case turns on a simple loop. The more a user interacts with a certain type of content, the more the For You feed recommends similar content, the Commission said. The loop turns harmful when endless and repeated exposure involves content about sadness, isolation or body image, which can damage mental health, especially for vulnerable adults and minors.
Repeated exposure may lead to increased feelings of sadness or anxiety, body dissatisfaction and lower self-esteem, or worsen existing eating disorders and mental conditions, according to the Commission. The risk is not confined to children, which sets this case apart from the regulation and litigation aimed at social media feeds. Adults in vulnerable situations are explicitly part of the concern.
Two failures, not one
The findings cover two separate duties the Digital Services Act places on very large online platforms. The first is risk assessment, under Article 34: TikTok did not adequately assess how its recommendation algorithm may lead users into rabbit holes. The second is mitigation, under Article 35: the company failed to implement proportionate, reasonable and effective measures against those risks.
TikTok had not done nothing. The Commission acknowledged that the company has put in place measures to limit the rabbit-hole effect, but found they are not effective. Diversification measures do not sufficiently reduce how often content is recommended, including content about mental health struggles and body image, and the control tools do not let users steer what they are shown.
The sharpest detail concerns the ‘not interested’ button. Using it may not be enough to change the feed, the Commission said, because the algorithm prioritises content based on viewing time, over a user’s choice to see less of it. When a stated wish and viewing behaviour point in different directions, behaviour wins.
What Brussels wants changed
The Commission did not stop at diagnosis. It said TikTok needs to change the design of the For You feed, and gave four examples of what that could mean: rely more on users’ explicit preferences, disable viewing time as an indicator to recommend content, increase the accessibility and usability of user controls, and regularly test its algorithm.
Those details would normally be settled in a final decision or in commitments from the company. The open question is practical: whether a feed can stay personalised, and keep users watching, once its most direct measure of attention is taken out.
TikTok’s reply
TikTok rejected the findings. The company said they are ‘fundamentally inaccurate and distort our platform’s architecture and our commitment to user safety,’ adding that it has ‘a strong record of protecting our community while giving users direct and intuitive control over their content experience.’ The Commission’s executive vice-president, Henna Virkkunen, put the principle in plainer terms.
‘Every time a user scrolls or likes a video on TikTok, the algorithm serves more of the same, leading users down rabbit holes they cannot easily escape from,’ Virkkunen said. The Commission’s case rests on evidence gathered over more than two years, including TikTok’s risk assessments, internal data and documents, and interviews with experts in recommender systems, psychology and psychiatry.
Virkkunen added that the Digital Services Act makes platforms responsible for the negative effects of their recommender systems. TikTok can examine the investigation file and reply in writing, while the European Board for Digital Services is consulted. If the Commission confirms its views, it may issue a non-compliance decision and fine the company up to 6% of its worldwide turnover.
Our Read
The striking part of this finding is what the Commission is asking TikTok to give up. Viewing time is the signal a short-video feed has in supply: it arrives with every swipe and needs no decision. Asking a platform to disable it as a recommendation input is not a settings tweak; it challenges ranking logic that decides which videos travel.
The second point worth noting is that this is a design case, not a content case. Brussels is not asking TikTok to remove particular videos or police individual posts. It is saying the system that chooses what comes next is itself the risk, because it cannot tell a user who is interested from a user who is stuck.
Why It Matters
If the preliminary view survives, every engagement-ranked feed in Europe will face the same question, because viewing time is the basic input behind short-video ranking everywhere. Creators, brands and publishers reach audiences largely through algorithmic recommendation rather than follower lists, so a feed that weighs stated preferences more heavily would change which videos travel and how far they go.
The Meta parallel also matters. The Commission preliminarily found in July that Instagram and Facebook breached the DSA over addictive design, and a separate strand on rabbit-hole recommendations to minors remains open there. A confirmed TikTok decision would set the template for how far Brussels can push every large platform to redesign its feed.
Brussels is pressing on a second front at the same time. An EU court adviser said this week that Gemini answers can infringe press publishers’ rights when they reuse recognisable wording from articles. Together, the two cases show Europe treating what an algorithm chooses to show, and what an AI chooses to say, as questions of design, not just content.
Background
The proceedings against TikTok opened in February 2024, and earlier findings this year covered addictive design and the protection of minors. The pattern is spreading: in the United States, the three companies have each sued California over a law banning personalised feeds for under-16s, while House Democrats have asked frontier AI firms to report safety incidents within 48 hours.
Source: European Commission press release and AP report
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