TikTok creates addiction and must change, EU threatens fines up to 6% of global revenue

The European Commission has issued a formal warning that could mark a watershed change in the regulation of social platforms in the Old Continent.

According to the preliminary findings released today by Brussels, TikTok would have violated the Digital Services Act (DSA) through the implementation of features designed to foster compulsive usage.

ByteDance’s platform now faces a crossroads: to implement structural changes to its operation or face sanctions that could reach 6% of its global annual revenue.

TikTok will have to change in Europe, it stimulates “compulsive use”

At the heart of the criticisms raised by the European executive is the architecture of the app itself. Iconic features such as infinite scrolling, auto-playing videos, aggressive push notifications, and personalized recommendation systems have come under the investigators’ scrutiny.

According to the Commission, these elements are not neutral, but would have been designed to exploit users’ psychological vulnerabilities, pushing them to nonstop consumption.

The analyses conducted suggest that the app fuels the desire to keep scrolling the feed, pushing users’ brains into a kind of “auto-pilot mode“.

This mental state, sustained by a constant reward in the form of new short and immediate content, could drastically reduce self-control, paving the way for pathological behaviors.

The gravest accusation concerns the alleged negligence of the platform in assessing how these mechanisms could harm the physical and mental well-being of users, with particular reference to minors and more vulnerable adults.

Brussels has also highlighted how TikTok has ignored crucial indicators of compulsive use, such as how often the app is opened and the time minors spend online during night hours.

Insufficient safety measures and Brussels’ ultimatum

Although the platform already has some mitigation tools, such as parental controls and usage time management, the Commission has judged them substantially ineffective. These barriers, in fact, are easy to circumvent or deactivate and require manual activation by parents, severely limiting their real impact.

To avoid the maxi-fine, the company will therefore need to revise the design of its main service. The EU’s demands include introducing mandatory pauses, a deep recalibration of the recommendation algorithm, and the deactivation of features that foster greater dependence.

Europe’s position has been reiterated firmly by the Commissioner for Technology, Henna Virkkunen, who has stressed that dependence on social media can have deleterious effects on the brain development of children and adolescents.

The Digital Services Act imposes direct responsibility on platforms for the effects generated on their users, and Europe intends to apply the legislation rigorously to protect online citizens.

An increasingly stringent legal context

Already in November last year, the French prosecutor’s office had opened a criminal investigation accusing the platform of not adequately safeguarding the mental health of minors.

On the data protection front, the situation also appears complex. In May 2025, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) had imposed on TikTok a fine of 530 million euros for the illegal transfer of personal data to China.

This measure followed a previous fine of 345 million euros, imposed two years earlier for violations of minors’ privacy and the use of “dark patterns” during registration, confirming that European authorities’ attention is now laser-focused on every operational aspect of the social network.