EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says the EU will take action against “addictive design” features on TikTok and Instagram, like “endless scrolling”
Context & Ripple Effects
The Commission’s stance follows a longer TikTok-focused DSA track: it formally examined TikTok Lite’s engagement rewards in 2024, then issued preliminary findings that TikTok’s infinite scroll and recommendation system constituted illegal addictive design.
The new statement extends that enforcement framing from TikTok to Instagram. Related coverage also points to Instagram’s sustained efforts to regain teen engagement through recommendations and creator promotion, making retention-oriented product design central to the regulatory question.
First-order effects
- TikTok and Instagram face heightened pressure to review features such as endless feeds and recommendation loops that may be characterized as encouraging compulsive use, particularly among younger users.
- The Commission signals that addictive design is an active enforcement category under the DSA rather than a narrow concern tied only to TikTok Lite’s reward mechanism.
Second-order effects
- Product, trust-and-safety, and policy teams at the platforms will have to weigh engagement-retention tactics against the risk of required design changes or DSA penalties; recommendation settings and feed-stopping mechanisms become more consequential compliance decisions.
- Other large social platforms with similarly continuous, algorithmically curated feeds may need to assess whether the TikTok and Instagram approach creates a reusable Commission standard.
Third-order effects
- If the Commission sustains these cases, EU platform regulation could move beyond content moderation and transparency toward scrutiny of the engagement mechanics that shape how long users remain on a service.
- That would create a durable tension in consumer social media between growth models built around returning users and regulatory expectations that platforms mitigate potentially harmful engagement patterns; the eventual boundary will depend on final DSA findings and remedies.
The trend: The EU is increasingly treating platform interface and recommendation design—not only the content platforms host—as a core area for DSA enforcement.