The UK’s media watchdog has been urged to investigate TikTok’s ‘extremely damaging algorithm’ after the EU said it may have breached its online safety laws
The UK’s media watchdog has been urged to investigate TikTok’s “extremely damaging algorithm” after the EU said the platform may have breached its online safety laws.
In a preliminary ruling, the European Commission found the Chinese tech company’s “For You” feed is in breach of its Digital Services Act, the EU’s legislation to make the online world safer.
Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech security at the Commission, said the platform sends users down a “rabbit hole” of harmful content on their recommender feeds – and called on TikTok to “step up” in protecting people’s wellbeing.
Recommender feeds show users content, such as videos or photos, that are selected specifically for them, instead of people or accounts they follow. Campaigners have criticised how their powerful algorithms hook users into a stream of never-ending posts by predicting what content they want to see next.
Outlining its ruling, the commission said: “The more a user interacts with a certain type of content, the more TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed algorithm recommends similar content.
“This design can be harmful when such endless and repeated exposure involves, for example, content about sadness, isolation or body image. These ‘rabbit holes’ can have a detrimental impact on users’ mental health, especially that of vulnerable adults and minors.”
The commission said it found TikTok did not adequately assess how its recommendation algorithm may lead users into “rabbit holes”, such as vulnerable users being shown a stream of content about weight-loss or body image, or posts that increase feelings of sadness or anxiety.
Rowan Ferguson, senior policy and research manager at Molly Rose Foundation (MRF), called for Ofcom to probe TikTok’s algorithms and the impact on UK users. He said: “We welcome these landmark findings by the EU to seek to hold TikTok to account for the way their algorithm drives young people down rabbit holes of despair.
“It is now crucial that Ofcom investigates TikTok’s extremely damaging algorithm to address their severe failings under the Online Safety Act and send a signal to Big Tech that it can no longer get away with damaging young lives.” The MRF is a suicide prevention charity that was set up in the name of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old teenager who took her own life after being bombarded with harmful content online in 2017.
He pointed to MRF research showing three quarters of teens who saw high risk suicide, self-harm, depression and eating disorder content in the UK saw it on TikTok, most often via recommender feeds. Teens are three times more likely to see harmful content on TikTok than on the next worse platform (Instagram, at 23%), the study also found.
Ofcom opened an investigation into TikTok in July over concerns the tech giant was not doing enough to identify children on its site and prevent them from seeing harmful content. Algorithmic recommender feeds could be included in its probe if they harm children, but the probe does not say it is specifically looking at TikTok’s algorithm.
Under the Online Safety Act, social media firms must ensure they take faster action on removing harmful content and introduce proper age checks on their platforms. The measures came into force in July last year and tech companies who fail to protect kids online risk being fined 10% of their global turnover.
Ms Virkkunen said: “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. The Digital Services Act makes platforms responsible for addressing the negative effects related to their recommender system. Today’s preliminary findings show again that TikTok needs to step up its efforts to protect users’ well-being, including those of minors.”
TikTok has the possibility to exercise its right to defend itself against the Commission’s preliminary ruling. The preliminary findings do not prejudge the outcome of the investigation.
A TikTok spokesman said: “The Commission has made a series of statements that are fundamentally inaccurate and distort our platform’s architecture and our commitment to user safety. We have a strong record of protecting our community while giving users direct and intuitive control over their content experience.”
An Ofcom spokesman said: “We’ve driven some of the strongest changes of any online safety regulation in the world, from widespread age checks to grooming protections for children. But the job is far from done and we’ve made clear that platforms, including TikTok, need to go much further, including taking action to make their feeds safer for children.
“We’ve shown we’ll take action if evidence suggests companies are falling short. In the first 18 months of the Act coming into force, we’ve launched investigations into more than 100 platforms, including TikTok, and issued fines totalling more than £7million against 11 providers.”