EU Charges TikTok Over Algorithm That Traps Young Users in Harmful Content 'Rabbit Holes'

On Friday, the European Commission issued a preliminary ruling charging TikTok with failing to protect the mental health of its users. The regulator said the platform's algorithm "can be harmful" and pulls young and vulnerable viewers "down rabbit holes they cannot easily escape from." The case reaches past any single video and targets the way the product is built.

TikTok, which is Chinese-owned and has 189 million users in the EU, was found to have failed to stop people from being served repetitive content on themes such as body image or isolation. According to the Commission, that kind of stream can bring on anxiety and sadness, and can worsen existing eating disorders or other mental health problems.

Officials stressed that they were looking at legal content. A single video on one of these themes might be unobjectionable. The concern is the cumulative effect of watching scores of them in a row on the same subject.

The Commission found TikTok's safeguards against these "rabbit-hole effects" ineffective. Its example: a user who pressed the "not interested" button on a video about eating patterns would still be offered similar content about diet and body image. Refreshing the feed, it found, gave only a brief respite from a stream on one topic.

Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's lead official on tech policy, put it plainly. Every time a user scrolls or likes a video, she said, the algorithm serves more of the same. She added that TikTok "needs to step up its efforts to protect users' wellbeing, including those of minors."

TikTok rejected the charge. A spokesperson said the Commission had made statements that were "fundamentally inaccurate" and that distorted the platform's architecture and its commitment to safety. The company says its policies prohibit content promoting disordered eating and risky weight-management behaviours, and that users have direct, intuitive control over what they see. It also says more than 79 million EU users used its "not interested" or keyword filters in the first six months of 2026.

The Molly Rose Foundation welcomed the findings. The charity was set up in memory of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017 after being exposed to a torrent of harmful online content. It said the ruling seeks to hold TikTok to account for driving young people "down rabbit holes of despair." A survey for the charity earlier this year found that nearly half of girls, and a third of all UK teenagers, saw suicide, self-harm or eating-disorder content on social media within a week. The foundation called on the UK regulator, Ofcom, to open its own investigation into what it called an "extremely damaging" algorithm.

The Commission wants TikTok to redesign its ForYou feed and give users more control over what appears. A Commission official told reporters, "We are addressing a business model," saying that a model built mainly on engagement "can potentially create a risk," especially for minors and vulnerable adults.

The findings belong to a wider investigation opened in February 2024 under the Digital Services Act, which requires large platforms to act against harms ranging from disinformation to damage to mental health. The Commission has already found TikTok in breach over "addictive design" features such as infinite scroll; the company then called those findings "categorically false and entirely meritless" and said it would challenge them. A separate complaint, about transparency over who pays for advertising, was settled when TikTok made binding commitments last December.

TikTok can now examine the investigation file and mount a defence. It could also agree to change its recommender system to avoid a penalty. If the finding is upheld, the fine could reach 6% of its global turnover.