The European Commission (EC) is once again going after TikTok, this time in a more brazen way, over its “For You” feed that it says is harmful to “vulnerable adults and minors.”
On Friday, November 6, the EU’s executive arm preliminarily found that the way the feed is designed and functions is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA), a controversial online censorship and age verification law.
The Commission says the algorithm behind it creates a “rabbit hole effect” – and this is the first time it has cited a recommendation algorithm as the reason for a breach.
TikTok’s “For You” feed works in a way that “the more a user interacts with a certain type of content, the more TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed algorithm recommends similar content.”
According to the EC, this “can be harmful when such endless and repeated exposure involves, for example, content about sadness, isolation or body image.”
The Commission’s “investigation” focused on legal content – meaning that there is no doubt that what is shown in the videos is lawful – but the regulator has a problem with the frequency of such content being shown to users.
As officials told the press, a single video of this kind might not be problematic, but many of them, one after the other, could be. The Commission is essentially saying that it has the right to decide what and how many videos of a particular, lawful topic an adult is allowed to watch.
Bill tracker: EU Digital Services Act · Law · We oppose it
The finding does not only concern minors – it explicitly mentions “vulnerable adults” as well. An official said that “We are addressing a business model.”
TikTok, the Commission says, needs to “change the design of the ‘For You’ feed” – and the Commission has some ideas on how to do it: “rely more on users’ explicit preferences, disable viewing time as an indicator to recommend content, increase the accessibility and usability of user controls, and regularly test its algorithm.”
The “not interested” button that users can click on videos they don’t want to see “may not be enough to change the content feed” – and the fact that people repeatedly watch or like a video is taken as a sign that they want to see more of the same.
In the Commission’s own words, “The system interprets these interactions as positive signs of interest and recommends more of the same.”
