EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's ‘addictive design’ targeting kids on social media

The EU is clamping down on social media firms and plans to target "addictive design" features on TikTok and Instagram as governments worldwide look to protect children from the harms of social media.

The region will take action against certain features on social media platforms later in the year, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday at the European Summit on Artificial Intelligence and Children in Denmark.

CNBC has approached ByteDance and Meta for comment.

"We are taking action against TikTok and its addictive design – endless scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications. The same applies to Meta, because we believe Instagram and Facebook are failing to enforce their own minimum age of 13," Von der Leyen said.

"We are investigating platforms that allow children to go down 'rabbit holes' of harmful content – such as videos that promote eating disorders or self-harm," she added.

The EU's executive arm has also developed its own age verification app, which has the "highest privacy standards in the world," according to Von Der Leyen.

Member states will soon be able to integrate it into their digital wallets, and it can easily be enforced by online platforms. "No more excuses – the technology for age-verification is available," the EU chief said.

Earlier this year, the EU Commission launched an investigation against Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, for the spreading of sexually explicit non-consensual content of women and children generated by its chatbot Grok.

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