TikTok’s protection of minors should not be opt-in, warns EU

TikTok has attracted the ire of the European Union over its protection of children who use the video sharing platform. The European Commission announced preliminary findings today under the Digital Services Act (DSA) that offer specific issues to address.

The Commission suggests that TikTok should adjust the default settings of minors’ “public” accounts so the content they post is only visible to TikTok users the teen has chosen to share it with, and that such content shouldn’t be recommended to other users in the For You feed. Even accounts set to private can be easily discovered through the “following” lists of other users, and their profile photos can be seen by anyone. If TikTok fails to address the concerns, it could face a DSA non-compliance decision that imposes fines of up to 6 percent of the company’s global annual revenue.

“Minors deserve a safe experience from the moment they go online. The Digital Services Act requires platforms to build protections for minors into the design of their services, and holds them to account when they fail to do so,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in the announcement. “A high level of protection should not be an opt-in; it should be the default. This is our responsibility for current and future generations of European children.”

The preliminary findings follow UK communications regulator Ofcom launching a similar child safety investigation into TikTok last week, with updates expected in October. The EU says its separate probe to evaluate the addictive “rabbit hole effect” of TikTok’s recommender systems is still ongoing.