The European Commission sent new preliminary findings to the TikTok social network, on Friday 6 November. This time, they concern the recommendation system for its personalised 'For You’ feed. The Commission accuses the subsidiary of Chinese group ByteDance of breaching certain provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA) by exposing users “endlessly and repeatedly” to content about “sadness, isolation or body image”. The accumulation of such content has a “negative impact on mental health”, particularly that of minors and vulnerable adults, the Commission stressed in a statement. The platform disputes the allegations.
This is the third set of preliminary findings against TikTok this year, following those issued in February on its addictive interface (see EUROPE 13803/3) and in July on the protection of minors’ accounts (see EUROPE 13916/3). The Commission clarified that this case does not concern the app’s design being “addictive”, but what its algorithm chooses to show, drawing users into uninterrupted viewing of content harmful to their wellbeing, a phenomenon commonly known as a 'rabbit hole’.
“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”, said the Commission’s Executive Vice-President responsible for digital matters, Henna Virkkunen.
Ineffective safeguards. The Commission does not accuse the platform of ignoring this risk, but considers the measures it has put in place ineffective. “What we are finding today is that the identification is okay, but the assessment and analysis of these risks is not thorough, and the mitigations are not effective”, a Commission official said. The official cited the non-personalised feed, an option chosen by only 0.2% of users, and the feed refresh function, which does not have a permanent effect.
These findings are disputed by the company. The Commission “has made a series of statements that are fundamentally inaccurate and distort our platform's architecture and our commitment to user safety”, a company spokesperson told Agence Europe. “We have a strong record of protecting our community while giving users direct and intuitive control over their content experience”. TikTok, which says that content on its ‘For You’ feed is reviewed by its recommendation systems, points to its efforts to remove content that breaches its rules on mental health.
The Commission is calling for a fundamental change to a model built on “implicit engagement of users”. It wants a model based on “explicit user preferences”.
These findings foreshadow Article 10 of the forthcoming regulation on the protection of minors (‘Kids Act’), which concerns the recommendation systems of platforms. “It is exactly these things that (...) we want all platforms to pursue in the future. So in a way, it is already a scene-setter”, a Commission official stressed. (Original version in French by Louis Dubar)