TikTok defends teen safety tools as EU weighs social media age limits

TikTok is defending its child-safety controls while European regulators move toward tighter limits on how young people use social media. For everyday investors, the fight shows how online safety rules can become a real business issue for major tech platforms, affecting product design, legal risk and spending.

Ali Law, TikTok’s director of public policy and government affairs in Northern Europe, told CNBC’s Karen Tso and Steve Sedgewick on Tuesday that the app was built with “safety by design” in mind. That phrase means safety features are built into the product from the start, rather than added later after problems appear.

Law said TikTok is aware of concerns from parents and policymakers. He said the company wants users to have a “healthy and safe relationship” with the app because people can benefit from using it.

Europe is moving toward stricter rules

The comments came as the European Union continues work on restrictions for children’s use of social media. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday that the bloc would press ahead with efforts to limit children’s access, including looking at an age threshold for joining platforms.

Von der Leyen said the EU’s approach is based on findings from a special panel on online child safety that she commissioned. She said Europe believes parents should raise children, “and not predatory algorithms,” adding that social media “is not a toy.”

She also said there is already consensus that there should be a minimum age for children to join social media, while parents should decide when children get their first smartphones.

Governments outside the EU are also looking at the issue. CNBC reported that Australia became the first country to legally enforce a ban in December, while the U.K., France, Greece and Spain have announced similar restrictions.

What TikTok says it has changed

Law told CNBC that TikTok has more than 50 preset safety settings for users under 16. Those defaults include a one-hour screen-time limit and a 10 p.m. screen takeover that tells younger users to take a break.

Some of the tools work as warnings, and younger users can choose to keep using the app after seeing them, according to CNBC. Other limits are stricter: users under 16 cannot use direct messages or sell through TikTok Shop, Law said.

Law described the features as default prompts meant to support a more balanced use of the app. He also said TikTok spent $2 billion on trust and safety last year. Trust and safety refers to the teams, systems and moderation tools companies use to reduce harmful activity and enforce platform rules.

Scrutiny over addictive design

TikTok has faced criticism over design features that regulators and plaintiffs say can keep users engaged for long periods. Von der Leyen said earlier this year that the EU would act against “TikTok and its addictive design,” citing features such as infinite scrolling, autoplay and push notifications.

Infinite scrolling means a feed keeps loading new content without requiring users to click to a new page. Autoplay starts the next video automatically. Push notifications are alerts sent to a user’s device to draw them back into an app.

Earlier this year, TikTok settled with a plaintiff in a high-profile social media case that alleged platforms including Instagram and YouTube harmed young people’s mental health through addictive design features such as infinite scrolling, CNBC reported.

In the same case, CNBC reported that Meta and Google were later found negligent by a jury for failing to warn users about the dangers of using their platforms.

The pressure on TikTok is part of a broader regulatory turn against social media companies. The next question for the industry is how far governments go in setting age limits, and how platforms prove their safety tools are strong enough to satisfy regulators.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.