The European Commission on Friday preliminarily found TikTok in breach of the EU’s Digital Services Act, accusing the video-sharing platform of failing to protect users from its own recommendation system. The Commission said TikTok’s For You feed creates a “rabbit hole effect”, repeatedly serving up similar videos — about sadness, isolation and body image — that can damage mental health, particularly among minors and vulnerable adults.
At the heart of the case is how the feed decides what to show next. Every scroll or like, the Commission said, is treated as a sign of interest, prompting the algorithm to serve more of the same. Users are drawn into long, narrow streams of similar content “they cannot easily escape from”, in the words of Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty.
The Commission said TikTok had not properly assessed the risk its recommender system poses, and that the safeguards it has put in place — including a “not interested” button — do not work well enough. It wants the company to redesign the feed: give greater weight to users’ explicit preferences rather than viewing time, make controls easier to find, and test the algorithm regularly.
The findings are preliminary and do not prejudge the outcome. TikTok can examine the Commission’s investigation file and reply in writing, while the European Board for Digital Services is consulted. If the Commission confirms its view, it can issue a non-compliance decision carrying a fine of up to 6% of TikTok’s total worldwide annual turnover — a sum that could run into hundreds of millions of euros.
TikTok rejected the findings, calling them “fundamentally inaccurate” and saying they distort both the platform’s design and its commitment to user safety. The case is the latest in a formal investigation opened in February 2024, which has already produced preliminary findings on addictive design in February and on the protection of minors in July.
The Digital Services Act, the EU’s sweeping law for large online platforms, requires them to assess and mitigate risks from their recommendation systems. A requirement to rework the For You feed — TikTok’s most valuable asset — would touch the core of the product and could set a precedent other regulators follow.
Sources: European Commission, “Commission preliminarily finds TikTok in breach of the Digital Services Act” (press release IP/26/2361, 6 November 2026), https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_2361 ; The Guardian, via Glasgow Times, https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/national/26705854.eu-says-rabbit-hole-video-feeds-tiktok-violate-digital-rules/ ; Agence Europe, https://agenceurope.eu/en/bulletin/article/13977/5/european-commission-believes-tiktok-does-not-adequately-protect-users-from-rabbit-holes-of-harmful-content
