The social media platform’s practices are under investigation by the European Commission and could be subjected to review.
The European Commission has accused TikTok of creating an "addictive design" in its app capable of harming the physical and mental well-being of minors and vulnerable adults.
On Friday, the commission preliminarily found TikTok’s addictive design to be in breach of the Digital Services Act.
Those include features such as the infinite scroll, autoplay of videos, the possibility to enable push notifications for creators, and content and its highly personalised recommender system.
The review, carried out as of February 2024, concluded that Tik Tok woefully disregarded important indicators of compulsive use of the app such as the time minors are spending on the platform throughout the night.
The Commission considers that the app, owned by Chinese developer ByteDance, needs to change the basic design of its service and disable its key addictive features while installing mandatory screen time breaks.
Children play with a mobile phone. Picture by: Gregory Wrona.Speaking on The Hard Shoulder, Ollwyn Moran, Neuro Development Therapist & Founder of Cogni Kids said she was ‘delighted’ by this development.
“There’s an awful lot of research out there on the Tik Tok brain, the popcorn brain and so on, so it’s great to see the EU is finally calling the addictive design what it is”, she told Newstalk.
She added that conversations on addictive design on social media platforms shouldn’t be reserved for the tech sector.
“This conversion should be one about child protection because we have to protect our vulnerable children. The same company who owns Tik Tok also owns its Chinese counterpart called Douyin.
“Douyin does not have any addictive features because China’s laws explicitly require platforms to promote social value, protect minors from addiction and align content with education development goals.”
She explained that contrary to Tik Tok, Douyin promotes STEM and educational content, vocational skills and achievement-oriented content while actively ranking down “pranking” content, reels and passive content.
“Douyin also has strict time limits, people are allowed to use it for 40 minutes a day and it has a mandatory shutdown at night.
“The youth mode automatically defaults to educational content.”
“We can see the benefits of the Australian ban”, she told Newstalk.
“Kids are not bothered at all, they’re reporting that actually they’re feeling much more social connection with their friends in real life.
“The feedback from the research is showing that in the first few weeks they missed but then they adapted.”
Last week, the Minister of Communications, Patrick O'Donovan, announced an age verification process for online platforms would be rolled out.
If successful, it would restrict access to social media platforms to those above the age of 16 using PPS numbers.
Patrick O'Donovan. Picture by: PA Images.If successful, it would restrict access to social media platforms to those above the age of 16 using PPS numbers.
Mrs Moran noted that a similar check is already in place in China.
“Before people can access online gaming platforms they need to input their PPS number into a portal to register,” she told Shane Coleman.
“It’s great to see Ireland as a tech hub but we also need to see Ireland as a country where leadership is very responsible about the harm that’s being done.
“Incremental bams make politicians feel responsible but children’s brains pay the price in real time.
Main Image: Tik Tok. Picture by: The Associated Press.
