EU Warns TikTok That Child Safety Protections Must Be Default, Not Optional
EU Commission’s July 2026 DSA preliminary findings say TikTok must make minors’ safety the default: minor accounts’ public content should be limited to chosen audiences and excluded from the For You feed, even as private accounts can be surfaced via “following” and profile photos remain visible. It warns of fines up to 6% of global annual revenue if TikTok doesn’t fix the issues; Ofcom’s separate investigation has October updates.
The European Commission issued preliminary findings against TikTok in July 2026 over the platform’s handling of minors’ accounts, warning the company it must make child safety protections automatic rather than something users have to actively enable.
The findings were announced under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and target specific gaps in how TikTok handles accounts belonging to minors. The Commission says TikTok should change the default settings on minors’ public accounts so that content they post is only visible to users the teen has chosen to share it with, and that such content should not be recommended to other users through the For You feed. The Commission also flagged that even accounts set to private can be discovered through other users’ “following” lists, and that profile photos remain visible to anyone.
“A high level of protection should not be an opt-in; it should be the default,” said EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen. “Minors deserve a safe experience from the moment they go online. This is our responsibility for current and future generations of European children.”
If TikTok does not address the concerns, it could face a formal DSA non-compliance decision carrying fines of up to 6 percent of the company’s global annual revenue.
The EU’s preliminary findings follow UK communications regulator Ofcom launching a separate child safety investigation into TikTok the previous week, with updates from that probe expected in October. The European Commission also noted that its own ongoing investigation into the addictive “rabbit hole effect” of TikTok’s recommender systems remains separate and is still continuing.