The European Commission has accused TikTok of failing to protect minors’ accounts and failing to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Minors can set their TikTok accounts to “public”. This means that any user, including those without a TikTok account, can view content from minors. It also allows content from 16- 17-year-olds to be recommended to any other TikTok user.
The Commission believes that this can lead to unwanted contact with strangers and cyberbullying. In addition, minors’ posts can remain online forever and follow them into adulthood.
Even when minors choose private accounts, they can be easily found by other users and their profile pictures remain visible to everyone.
The Commission has tentatively found that TikTok’s account settings do not comply with the DSA standard because they disclose minors’ accounts and content too broadly.
The agency believes that TikTok should configure minors’ accounts so that their content is visible only to users the minor has approved.