The European Commission has issued preliminary findings that TikTok breached the Digital Services Act by failing to protect minors’ privacy, exposing children to cyberbullying and predatory behaviour. TikTok now has an opportunity to respond before regulators decide on a potential fine of up to 6% of its global annual turnover.
The European Union’s tech regulator has formally charged TikTok with breaching child-safety rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA), after preliminary findings showed the platform allowed minors’ accounts and content to remain widely visible to adults and even non-users, exposing youngsters to cyberbullying, unwanted contact and predatory behaviour. The Commission said TikTok must tighten default privacy settings for under-18s so their content is visible only to accepted followers, and stop recommending minors’ posts via the “For You” feed, warning that if its concerns are not addressed the company could face a non-compliance decision and fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue.digital-strategy.
Regulatory findings on child safety
As reported by Una Hajdari of Euronews, the European Commission said on Friday it had found TikTok did not adequately protect children’s privacy on its platform, after allowing adults to view the accounts of minors. The Commission said the failure exposed children to cyberbullying, unwanted contact and predatory behaviour.
According to Reuters, the charges – called preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act, which requires Big Tech to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content – are the fourth allegation against TikTok in two years. The European Commission, which serves as the EU tech enforcer, said TikTok accounts fall short of DSA safety standards.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement:
“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.”
Specific breaches identified by the Commission
The Commission’s preliminary findings focus on Article 28(1) of the Digital Services Act, which requires platforms accessible to minors to provide a high level of privacy, safety and security. On TikTok, minors can choose to set their account as “public”, meaning that any user, including those without a TikTok account, may be able to view minors’ content.digital-strategy.
This setting also allows content published by “older” minors (16–17 years old) to be recommended to any other TikTok user through the For You Feed. The Commission preliminarily considers that TikTok – in line with the Guidelines on the protection of minors – should adjust the default settings of minors’ public accounts, so that their content is, by default, visible only to TikTok users whom the minor has accepted.
While older minors may have the option to share their content with a broader audience on TikTok, the content should under no circumstances be accessible to a global audience outside the platform. Moreover, TikTok should refrain from recommending minors’ content to other TikTok users through the For You Feed.
The Commission also warned that content posted by minors may remain online into adulthood, creating long-term privacy risks.
Potential penalties and next steps
TikTok can now examine the Commission’s documents and respond before the watchdog issues a decision that could include a fine of as much as 6% of its global annual turnover. If the findings are confirmed, the Commission may issue a non-compliance decision and impose a fine of up to six percent of TikTok’s global annual turnover.
As reported by Una Hajdari of Euronews, TikTok can now defend itself and reply to the findings. If the Commission is not satisfied with the Chinese firm’s response, it could issue a so-called non-compliance decision and a possible fine worth up to 6% of the company’s total annual revenue.
Wider context of TikTok’s EU compliance issues
This is not the first time the investigation has produced adverse findings for TikTok. In February, the Commission found the platform had breached another part of the DSA over its “addictive design”, pointing to features such as autoplay and infinite scroll that it said could harm the physical and mental health of users, particularly minors.
As reported by Euronews, the Commission preliminarily found TikTok in breach of the Digital Services Act for its addictive design, including features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and its highly personalised recommender system. The Commission’s investigation preliminarily indicates that TikTok did not adequately assess how these addictive features could harm the physical and mental wellbeing of its users, including minors and vulnerable adults.
TikTok rejected those findings at the time, calling the Commission’s assessment “categorically false”. In an email sent to Euronews Next, TikTok said the Commission’s preliminary findings
“present a categorically false and entirely meritless depiction of our platform.”
TikTok has also faced scrutiny beyond the DSA. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined the company €345 million in 2023 for breaching EU data protection rules by allowing accounts for children under 13 and failing to adequately safeguard their data. TikTok was separately fined €530 million by the same regulator over its transfer of European user data to China, a decision upheld by Ireland’s High Court this year.
Background to the Digital Services Act
The Commission has been investigating TikTok’s compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s sweeping rulebook for online platforms, since February 2024, when the company was designated a Very Large Online Platform under the law. The DSA obligates online platforms to enhance their efforts in combating illegal and harmful content while also offering transparency regarding advertisements.
According to the EU executive, TikTok has not adhered to the requirements of the Digital Services Act, which mandates the establishment of an advertisement repository that enables researchers and users to identify fraudulent ads. In May 2025, social media app TikTok was charged by EU tech regulators with breaching EU online content rules, putting its owner ByteDance at risk of a fine of as much as 6% of its global turnover.
TikTok’s compliance measures and ongoing disputes
In line with its obligations under the DSA as a designated Very Large Online Platform (VLOP), TikTok has implemented significant changes to the product experience, including new processes and features designed to further enhance transparency of its approach to areas such as advertising, content moderation and recommendation systems. The company has also established a new compliance function to ensure it continues to deliver against the significant commitments of this landmark piece of content safety legislation.
In December 2025, the European Commission secured TikTok’s commitment to provide advertising repositories that ensure full transparency around ads on its services, as required by the Digital Services Act. These commitments include providing the full content of the advertisement as it appears in users’ feeds, updating its repository more quickly, and providing targeting criteria selected by advertisers along with aggregated user data.
However, regulators say more work is needed. As reported by Reuters, according to the EU executive, TikTok fails to furnish essential details concerning the nature of the advertisements, the specific audiences targeted, and the financial backers of the ads.
Timeline of key DSA enforcement actions against TikTok
The European Commission opened formal proceedings to assess whether TikTok may have breached the Digital Services Act in areas linked to the protection of minors, advertising transparency, data access for researchers, as well as the risk management of addictive design and harmful content. In April 2024, the Commission opened a second formal proceedings against TikTok under the DSA regarding the launch of TikTok Lite in France and Spain.digital-strategy.
In October 2025, the Commission preliminarily found both TikTok and Meta in breach of their obligation to grant researchers adequate access to public data under the Digital Services Act. The Commission also preliminarily found Meta, for both Instagram and Facebook, in breach of its obligations to provide users simple mechanisms to notify illegal content, as well as to allow them to effectively challenge content moderation decisions.
In February 2026, the Commission preliminarily found TikTok in breach of the DSA for its addictive design. The latest preliminary findings in July 2026 concern child-safety and privacy breaches under Article 28(1).
Industry and policy implications
The finding is the latest in a series of crackdowns on Big Tech by Brussels, which has led the world in regulating major technology firms, including Meta and Apple. The DSA requires platforms to maintain an accessible and searchable repository of the ads running on their services, which are critical for regulators, researchers, and civil society to detect scams, advertisements for illegal or age-inappropriate products, fake advertisements, and coordinated information operations, including in the context of elections.digital-strategy.
As reported by Reuters, ByteDance’s social media platform TikTok has been charged with breaching EU online content rules due to design features which could expose children to predators or cyberbullying, EU regulators said on Friday, putting the company at risk of a hefty fine. The Commission said the social media platform allows children to make their account public, enabling others to see the content and potentially exposing them to cyberbullying or contact from abusers.
It said even private accounts are not safe for children as they can be easily found through the “following” and “followers” list of other users, even by people who do not have a TikTok account. TikTok should adjust the default settings of minors’ public accounts so that the content is by default only visible to TikTok users accepted by the children, the Commission said.
