US EditionFact Check Team: EU charges TikTok for breaking rules, being too addictive
European Commission regulators say TikTok's design features may reinforce compulsive use, risking mental health and child safety under the EU Digital Services Act.
- European Commission regulators opened a preliminary probe into TikTok over concerns its design may encourage compulsive use, giving the company a chance to respond.
- Amid a regulatory shift in Europe, the Digital Services Act mandates very large online platforms identify and mitigate risks to children and mental health, prompting scrutiny.
- TikTok, owned by ByteDance, said it disputes the assessment and highlights safety measures like screen-time reminders and parental controls.
- If regulators confirm non-compliance, companies could face fines up to 6% of global annual revenue and must address infinite scroll, autoplay, and highly personalized recommendation systems.
- Beyond Europe, the debate on social media regulation involves nuanced research on design features and habitual use, which regulators say may encourage compulsive behavior; the U.S. policy environment continues to discuss similar issues.
17 Articles
17 Articles
Endless scrolling on social media could come to an end if the European Union succeeds in setting new design requirements in its dispute with Tiktok that would also apply to other major social media platforms, writes Politico.
Politico Europe
slashdot.orgThe EU moves to kill infinite scrolling
Brussels is going head-to-head with social media platforms to change addictive design.
In Europe, Tiktok reaches millions of users, especially young people and children. However, the EU Commission is increasingly seeing a problem in the success of the app and is now examining possible violations. read more on t3n.de
In Los Angeles, Meta and Google are on trial, in the EU, TikTok has to sharpen up. In both cases, it's about their addictive design. This points to a better way to protect children and young people: fighting causes instead of bans. A comment. It takes something else to protect children. And adults too. – Publicly released by unsplash.com Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash"I paint the world as I like it." – So far, the platform operators behin…
The major social media companies such as TikTok, Meta and Google currently have to deal with the accusation of a possible risk of addiction through their platforms on several fronts. The procedures that have been launched recently in Brussels and the USA are not about the social media content itself, but about product design – and with endless scrolling about a function that users of the social media platforms probably know very well.
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