BRUSSELS — Doom scrolling is doomed, if the EU gets its way.
The European Commission is for the first time tackling the addictiveness of social media in a fight against TikTok that may set new design standards for the world’s most popular apps.
Brussels hastold the companyto change several key features, including disabling infinite scrolling, setting strict screen time breaks and changing its recommender systems. The demand follows the Commission's declaration that TikTok’s design is addictive to users — especially children.
The fact that the Commission said TikTok should change the basic design of its service is “ground-breaking for the business model fueled by surveillance and advertising," said Katarzyna Szymielewicz, president of the Panoptykon Foundation, a Polish civil society group.
That doesn’t bode well for other platforms, particularly Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. The two social media giants are also under investigation over the addictiveness of their design.
The findings laid out a week ago mark the first time the Commission has set out its stance on the design of a social media platform under its Digital Services Act, the EU’s flagship online-content law that Brussels says is essential for protecting users.
TikTok can now defend its practices and review all the evidence the Commission considered — and has said it would fight these findings. If it fails to satisfy the Commission, the app could face fines up to 6 percent of annual global revenue.
It’s the first time any regulator has attempted to set a legal standard for the addictiveness of platform design, a senior Commission official said in a briefing to reporters.
“The findings mark a turning point [because] the Commission is treating addictive design on social media as an enforceable risk” under the Digital Services Act, said Lena-Maria Böswald, senior policy researcher at think tank Interface.
Jan Penfrat, senior policy adviser at civil rights group EDRi, said it would be "very, very strange for the Commission to not then use this as a template and go after other companies as well.”
Source: Drudge Report
