The European Union will look into whether ByteDance’s TikTok violated online content guidelines meant to safeguard children and ensure transparent advertising. If found in violation, the social media platform might face a steep fine, according to an official.

EU Industry Chief Thierry Breton confirmed earlier media reports by saying he made the decision after reviewing the risk assessment report of the short video app and its responses to information demands.

“Today we open an investigation into TikTok over suspected breach of transparency & obligations to protect minors: addictive design & screen time limits, rabbit hole effect, age verification, default privacy settings,” Breton said on X.

Since February 17, all online platforms are subject to the Digital Services Act (DSA) of the European Union, which mandates that search engines and particularly big online platforms take more action to combat threats to public safety and unlawful content.

If TikTok is found to have violated DSA regulations, its owner, China-based ByteDance, may be subject to sanctions of up to 6% of its worldwide revenue.

In order to keep young people safe on its platform, TikTok stated that it will continuing collaborating with industry experts and that it looked forward to providing a detailed explanation of this effort to the European Commission.

“TikTok has pioneered features and settings to protect teens and keep under 13s off the platform, issues the whole industry is grappling with,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

The probe, according to the European Commission, will concentrate on TikTok’s system design, particularly algorithmic algorithms that could encourage behavioural addictions and/or produce “rabbit hole effects.”

It will also investigate whether TikTok has implemented reasonable and suitable measures to provide a high degree of security, privacy, and safety for minors. The Commission is investigating whether TikTok offers a trustworthy database on advertisements on its site so that academics can carefully examine potential internet threats in addition to the matter of safeguarding children.

(Adapted from TheGuardian.com)