The study analyzes the European Commission's preliminary findings regarding TikTok, which reported "Omnes" in February: the U.S. case against Meta and YouTube; the legal basis of the Digital Services Act (DSA); the concept of "addictive design"; and the relationship between algorithms, dark patterns, and the protection of minors. It is dated May.
One of the main theses According to Mar Negreiro, a Spanish legal expert specializing in digital law and consumer protection, and her colleague, the legal problem lies not only in the content disseminated by the platforms, but also in the very architecture of the service, which is designed to maximize user engagement through behavioral mechanisms.
Risk to Mental Health
“The Commission preliminarily finds that TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service” (“The Commission preliminarily finds that TikTok must modify the basic design ”of their service"). The analysis of this statement largely summarizes the report's main contribution.
The legal issue no longer lies solely in illegal content or the processing of personal data, but also in the very design of digital platforms, when it encourages addictive behavior and puts mental health at risk, especially for minors and vulnerable individuals.
The text analyzes a paradigm shift in the regulation of large digital platforms. Until a few years ago, regulatory action focused on the removal of illegal content, data protection, and anti-competitive practices.
Maximize dwell time
However, the most recent research shows that the design of certain apps can lead to compulsive usage patterns that affect users’ psychological well-being. According to the author, platforms base their business model on maximizing user engagement time to increase advertising revenue. To do so, they employ mechanisms that stimulate the release of dopamine through constant, personalized rewards, encouraging repetitive and prolonged use.
It is against this backdrop that the European Commission’s preliminary conclusions on TikTok, published in February 2026, should be viewed. The Commission considers, following an investigation that is still ongoing, that certain features of the platform—such as infinite scrolling (infinite scroll), automatic video playback (autoplay), ongoing notifications (push notifications) and highly personalized recommendation systems—pose systemic risks to the mental health of minors and vulnerable adults.
Objective Indicators of Compulsive Use
It also criticizes the company for failing to take sufficient account of objective indicators of compulsive use, such as the amount of time minors spend online at night or how often they open the app. If these findings are definitively confirmed, TikTok could face significant financial penalties and, above all, be forced to modify essential aspects of its service’s architecture.
The report highlights that this action by the Commission is based on the Digital Services Act (DSA). Although the Regulation does not expressly use the term addictive design, it does provide sufficient tools to address these risks.
Legal obligations, risk assessment, protection of minors
In particular, Article 34 requires very large platforms to identify and assess systemic risks that may affect public health, the physical and mental well-being of users, and the protection of minors. For its part, Article 35 requires the adoption of effective measures to reduce such risks.
In addition, Article 25 prohibits manipulative designs in digital interfaces, known as dark patterns, which impair or limit users' ability to make free and informed decisions. Finally, Article 28 establishes specific obligations regarding the protection of minors in the digital environment.
Encouraging habits that are difficult to control, vulnerability
The author explains that the concept of addictive design It refers to deliberate design choices aimed at maximizing user engagement with the platform through psychological techniques that foster habits that are difficult to control. It is not just about capturing attention, but about creating dynamics of continuous interaction that encourage constant content consumption.
This issue is particularly concerning among adolescents, whose cognitive and emotional development makes them more vulnerable to these types of persuasive strategies. Several studies cited in the report link excessive use of social media to higher levels of anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, decreased attention span, and poorer impulse control.
U.S. Case
The report also draws an interesting parallel with the evolution of U.S. law. In March 2026, a U.S. jury found Meta and YouTube liable for the addictive nature of their platforms’ design. Although the monetary damages were relatively small, the legal significance of the decision lies in the fact that it sets the first precedent in which a court has deemed the very design of a social media platform to be negligent.
According to the author, this ruling may encourage changes in how platforms are configured to avoid future legal liability both in the United States and under other legal systems.
‘Dark patterns’ make it difficult to leave the app
Another key aspect of the analysis is the close relationship between recommendation algorithms and the dark patterns and the protection of minors.
Algorithms select highly personalized content to keep users engaged for as long as possible, while dark patterns make it difficult to exit the app or interrupt continuous content consumption. The combination of these two techniques significantly increases the risk of compulsive behavior.
For this reason, Negreiro argues that the effective protection of minors cannot rely exclusively on age restrictions or parental control mechanisms, since these solutions shift the responsibility onto families without addressing the structural problem: a business model designed to maximize user retention.
Future Regulations: What Constitutes “An Acceptable Design”
Finally, the report concludes that future European regulation should move toward a “fairness by design” model, in which the protection of consumers—and, in particular, minors—is built into the very design of the platforms’ technology.
In this regard, the future Digital Fairness Act could strengthen the obligations already set forth in the DSA and impose stricter limits on manipulative features.
As the legal scholar summarizes, “the challenge of this research is to assess what constitutes an acceptable design.” This issue goes beyond the technological sphere and raises a fundamental debate about the compatibility between the current business models of large digital platforms and the effective protection of the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable users.
The European Parliament, which is actively involved in this matter
The European Parliament has been active on this issue. In a December 2023 resolution on addictive design in online services, it called for an end to “shady practices” and gaps in consumer protection on the Internet.
This issue has also been addressed more recently in the own-initiative report by the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) on the protection of minors online, and in another report on the impact of social media and the online environment on young people currently being drafted by the Committee on Culture and Education.
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