Regulators have finally named the thing that makes TikTok work: your attention, measured to the second, and fed back to you as more of the same. The European Commission now says that design may break the law.
According to Engadget, the Commission has preliminarily found TikTok in breach of the Digital Services Act over the recommendation system behind the For You page. The complaint is simple. The more you engage with a type of video, the more of it you get. The Commission says that becomes a problem when the content involves sadness, isolation or body image, with “vulnerable adults and minors” most exposed.
The regulator also says TikTok failed to properly assess how the algorithm pulls people into these loops, and did too little to reduce the risk. One detail stands out. Tapping “not interested” “may not be enough to change the content feed,” the Commission said. So a control that looks like it gives you a say may be mostly decoration.
The remedies are where privacy readers should pay attention. The Commission wants TikTok to rely more on users’ explicit preferences, disable viewing time as a signal for recommendations, make controls easier to find and use, and test the algorithm regularly. Viewing time is a passive, behavioral measurement. You never agree to it in any meaningful way, you just generate it by existing in the app. Pushing platforms toward stated choices over inferred behavior would cut against the surveillance-based model of personalization.
TikTok denies it. The company told Reuters the Commission made statements that are “fundamentally inaccurate” and that users have “direct and intuitive control.” That’s a claim worth testing, and the Commission is effectively saying the evidence points the other way. If the findings are confirmed, ByteDance faces a fine of up to six percent of global annual revenue.
This isn’t an isolated case. The probe began in early 2024. In February the EU said TikTok’s “addictive design” breached the DSA, and in July it accused the company of failing to protect the privacy of minors’ accounts. Three separate complaints, one shared theme: the product is built to maximize engagement first and protect users second.
The pressure is global. This week Google, Meta and TikTok sued California over a law that bars platforms from giving users under 16 access to potentially addictive features. The industry is fighting these rules in court, which tells you how central engagement tuning is to the business.
The caveat is that these are preliminary findings, and DSA enforcement is slow. But if the Commission makes the viewing-time demand stick, it could set a template for every recommendation engine operating in Europe. That would matter far beyond one app.