EU Warns TikTok Over Minors' Protection

The European Commission has released preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act (DSA) that criticize TikTok’s handling of child users. The report highlights concerns about the platform’s default settings for minors and the potential for private accounts to be exposed through other users’ following lists. The Commission’s aim is to ensure that children’s content is protected and not inadvertently promoted to a broader audience.

According to the findings, TikTok should modify the default configuration of minors’ “public” accounts so that any content posted is visible only to the specific TikTok users the teenager chooses to share it with. Additionally, the Commission recommends that such content not appear in the For You feed or be recommended to other users. The report also points out that even accounts set to private can be discovered via the “following” lists of other users, raising further privacy risks for child users.

The Commission’s recommendations represent a significant step toward tightening regulatory oversight of social‑media platforms in the European Union. If implemented, these changes would align TikTok’s policies with the DSA’s broader objectives of protecting vulnerable users and ensuring transparency in content recommendation systems.