EU says TikTok's For You feed breaks its rules by pulling users into rabbit holes
The European Commission preliminarily found that TikTok's For You feed breaches the Digital Services Act and says the app should stop using viewing time to recommend videos. TikTok calls the findings inaccurate.
The European Commission said on Friday that TikTok's For You feed likely breaks the EU's Digital Services Act, because the way its recommendation algorithm learns from engagement can pull users into "rabbit holes" of repeated content about sadness, isolation or body image. In its preliminary findings, the Commission says TikTok needs to change how the feed is designed, and that if the view holds, it can fine the company up to 6% of its total worldwide annual turnover.
The case is narrower than a general complaint about screen time. It goes after the mechanism at the center of TikTok's product: a personalized ranking system that treats watching and liking a video as a sign the user wants more of the same. According to Politico, it is the first time the Commission has framed a social platform's recommender system itself as a breach of the DSA. "This is the first time that we are really tackling head-on the engagement-based recommender system model," one Commission official told the outlet.
What the Commission says is wrong with the feed
The findings make two charges. The first is about risk assessment. The Commission says TikTok did not properly assess how its algorithm could lead people into rabbit holes. Its example is a user who keeps watching or liking content about weight loss or body image: the system reads those interactions as interest and serves more of it. The Commission links that kind of repeated exposure to more sadness or anxiety, body dissatisfaction, lower self-esteem, and worsening eating disorders and other mental health conditions.
The second charge is about mitigation. TikTok already has tools meant to diversify the feed and give users control, but the Commission says they don't work well enough. Its diversification measures do not sufficiently cut how often similar content appears, and the "not interested" button may not be enough to change what the feed shows, because the algorithm gives more weight to viewing time than to a user's stated wish to see less of something.
The Commission also spelled out what a fix might look like. It says TikTok should lean more on users' explicit preferences, stop using viewing time as a signal for recommendations, make its user controls easier to find and use, and test its algorithm regularly. Dropping watch time would go to the core of how the feed ranks videos today, since the Commission's own findings say viewing time currently outweighs a user's stated choices.
The DSA already requires very large platforms to offer a feed that is not based on profiling. Only 0.2% of TikTok users actually choose that option, a Commission official told Politico. The new findings target the default personalized feed itself.
"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," Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, said in the announcement. "The Digital Services Act makes platforms responsible for addressing the negative effects related to their recommender system."
TikTok's response
TikTok rejected the findings. "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 spokesperson told Politico, adding that the company "has a strong record" of protecting its users.
TikTok can now read the Commission's investigation file and reply in writing. The European Board for Digital Services will be consulted in parallel. A preliminary finding is not a decision: the Commission would still need to confirm its view in a formal non-compliance decision before any fine.
Part of a longer case
Friday's findings sit inside formal proceedings the Commission opened against TikTok in February 2024, which named addictive design and rabbit-hole effects among the areas under review. Within the same case, the Commission issued preliminary findings on addictive design in February 2026, covering features such as infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications, and on the safety of minors' accounts in July 2026. Earlier findings on researcher access to public data came in October 2025, and a separate strand on advertising transparency was closed in December 2025 after TikTok agreed to binding commitments.
Politico counts this as the fifth time the Commission has accused TikTok of breaching EU rules, though it has not yet fined the platform. The Commission says it based the latest findings on TikTok's risk assessment reports, internal data and documents, the company's replies to requests for information, scientific research, and interviews with experts in recommender systems, psychology and psychiatry. Ireland's media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, supported the investigation.
The case adds to a busy stretch for regulators testing how platforms rank and repackage content, from Turkey's probe into Google's AI Overviews to publishers' lawsuit against Brave's search API. For TikTok, the next step is its written defense, which the Commission will weigh before deciding whether to issue a non-compliance decision.
