The European Commission (EC) has initiated an investigation into popular social media platform TikTok over potential contraventions of the Digital Services Act (DSA), particularly regarding child protection and advertising transparency. This could expose the platform to significant fines. The decision was made by regulator representative Thierry Breton after reviewing reports about the platform’s content policy, associated risks, and company responses to official inquiries.
The DSA, applicable to all online platforms since 17th February, mandates large online platforms and search engines to be more proactive in combating illegal content and public safety risks. TikTok’s parent company, Chinese firm ByteDance, could face a fine of up to 6% of its global turnover if the service is found guilty of breaching DSA regulations.
This investigation against TikTok, which predominantly focuses on concerns related to the lack of transparency and protection for minors, was announced by Thierry Breton.
Breton said, “We are initiating an investigation into TikTok over suspicions of transparency violations and obligations to protect minors: an addictive design and screen time limits, the rabbit hole effect, age verification, default privacy settings”.
The European Commission will concentrate on TikTok’s algorithms, suspected of encouraging addictive behavioural patterns. Adequacy and proportionality of measures taken by TikTok to ensure a high level of privacy, security, and protection for minors will also be scrutinized. Furthermore, the EC officials will closely examine the advertising data made available by TikTok for researchers to thoroughly assess potential online risks.
A TikTok representative has stated that the company will continue to collaborate with industry experts to ensure minor safety on its platform and plans to provide the European Commission with detailed information about this. “TikTok was the first to develop features and settings to protect teenagers and prevent access to the platform for children under 13 — an issue faced by the entire industry”, he announced.
This is the second EC investigation into DSA contraventions. Prior to this, it had targeted X, a social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
