If you're tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.The European Commission (EC) is once again going after TikTok, this time in a more brazen way, over its “For You” feed that it says is harmful to “vulnerable adults and minors.”On Friday, November 6, the EU’s executive arm preliminarily found that the way the feed is designed and functions is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA), a controversial online censorship and age verification law.The Commission says the algorithm behind it creates a “rabbit hole effect” – and this is the first time it has cited a recommendation algorithm as the reason for a breach.TikTok’s “For You” feed works in a way that “the more a user interacts with a certain type of content, the more TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed algorithm recommends similar content.”According to the EC, this “can be harmful when such endless and repeated exposure involves, for example, content about sadness, isolation or body image.”The Commission’s “investigation” focused on legal content – meaning that there is no doubt that what is shown in the videos is lawful – but the regulator has a problem with the frequency of such content being shown to users.As officials told the press, a single video of this kind might not be problematic, but many of them, one after the other, could be. The Commission is essentially saying that it has the right to decide what and how many videos of a particular, lawful topic an adult is allowed to watch.The finding does not only concern minors – it explicitly mentions “vulnerable adults” as well. An official said that “We are addressing a business model.”TikTok, the Commission says, needs to “change the design of the ‘For You’ feed” – and the Commission has some ideas on how to do it: “rely more on users’ explicit preferences, disable viewing time as an indicator to recommend content, increase the accessibility and usability of user controls, and regularly test its algorithm.”The “not interested” button that users can click on videos they don’t want to see “may not be enough to change the content feed” – and the fact that people repeatedly watch or like a video is taken as a sign that they want to see more of the same.In the Commission’s own words, “The system interprets these interactions as positive signs of interest and recommends more of the same.”Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen is quoted as saying, “Every time a user scrolls or likes a video on TikTok, the algorithm serves more of the same leading users down rabbit holes they cannot easily escape from.”The penalty for this can be a fine that can “reach up to but not more than 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover.” Before that happens, TikTok can read the file, reply, and possibly agree to change its recommendation algorithm to avoid paying.These are the latest preliminary findings in the case that was opened in February 2024. In October 2025, the EC said that TikTok made it harder to report “illegal content” and obstructed researchers’ access to data.In February 2026, it was the turn of “addictive design” to come under fire, with the Commission saying that the very “basic design” of the app might need to be changed. TikTok at the time rejected this as “a categorically false and entirely meritless depiction of our platform.”In July 2026, the focus was on the settings of minors’ accounts, and the fact that to treat minors differently on the internet, a platform must first determine which of its users are minors. The Commission’s own guidelines on the DSA say that self-declaration is “unreliable” – and point to “facial analysis or behaviour patterns” or “official IDs or trusted digital credentials, such as the upcoming EU Digital Identity Wallet.”The latest finding does not mention the need to implement age checks, but it does single out “vulnerable adults and minors.” Previously, we reported that “to use TikTok as an adult, a user first has to prove to TikTok that they are one.”No one is being protected here from anything that is illegal – the videos that are shown are lawful, but the frequency of them is not, according to the EU.The EU is setting the stage for a broader push against tech it dislikes, and the way the Chinese social media app is treated is likely to become a blueprint for others.

If you're tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.New Brunswick has become the first Canadian province to introduce legislation regulating how apps, games, and other platforms treat their users under 16 – and the bill will likely lead to age verification across the board, because of how it is designed.The proposed Young Consumers in Digital Markets Act, part of a broader An Act Respecting Young Persons, Digital Markets and Technology Use (Bill 12), was introduced on November 3 and is touted as pioneering in Canada. Justice Minister Robert McKee explained that the government has a responsibility to make sure children are safe online.“We know kids are online, and it is our responsibility to make decisions that will help them be safe while they are online,” he said.It sets out to ban a list of “unfair practices” by digital service providers, and breaking several of these rules is considered an offence that can be punished with a fine of up to $5 million or “imprisonment for a term of not more than five years less a day, or to both.”The Young Consumers in Digital Markets Act does not order age verification, but it does not have to: it applies to any provider who knows, or “ought reasonably to know” that young consumers “are using, accessing or interacting with or are likely to be using” its services, or who targets them.This puts a lot of pressure on companies to find out which of their users are under 16, and the most straightforward way to do that is to introduce age verification for everyone.The bill is designed to complement the federal Bill C-34, which was introduced in June, and orders platforms to “implement adequate age-verification or age-estimation measures” for under-16s – which in reality means that users will have to hand over their ID or undergo a face scan.According to New Brunswick, its proposed act will regulate digital products and services used by children, and the way they are marketed. The provincial Financial and Consumer Services Commission will be the enforcer, and will be able to impose fines, order records and documents, appoint investigators who can examine “any books, records, documents or communications” – and enter the premises of a provider – and remove material.The commission’s investigators will also be able to compel witnesses to testify under oath, and will have “all the powers, authorities and immunities of a peace officer as defined in the Criminal Code (Canada).”The tribunal that will be set up will be able to impose administrative penalties of up to $1 million, while the director of the commission can exempt any person or class from the law by order – and this order “may be retroactive in its operation.”As for the rules that the bill introduces, they include a ban on default settings that are “misleading, deceptive or excessively one sided in favour of the provider” – as well as notifications that are sent “during prescribed hours in a manner that encourages continued engagement.”It will be up to regulation to determine what those hours are. Designs that discourage a young user from stopping or pausing, as well as streaks, countdowns and scarcity messages that create “a false, misleading or unreasonable sense of urgency or scarcity” to push purchases, are also banned.Another target is the use of “personal information, behavioural data or profiling” for ads that are false or “intended to improperly influence the young consumer’s purchasing decisions.”Finally, the act adds, any other “practice prescribed by regulation” will also be considered an unfair one – which means the list can be expanded on without the need for a new vote in the legislature.If a provider is accused of breaching these rules, “the onus is on the provider to prove that the provider has not engaged in the unfair practice” – and the “general impression” of a practice can count, not just its literal meaning.In a press release, the province cited the head of the Financial and Consumer Services Commission, Kevin Hoyt, as saying that “the legislation will set clear expectations for how businesses design, market and deliver digital products and services to young consumers.”The bill also writes into law a ban on phones in schools, from kindergarten to grade 12, during school hours, with the rule for grades nine to 12 set to start on February 1, 2027. School staff will be allowed to “temporarily confiscate” devices.Licensed child care centers will not be allowed to let infants have any screen time, and older children will be limited to 30 minutes per day, with exceptions.What is clear is that the bill is another in a series of legislative efforts around the world that will end up pushing more age verification onto more people, as companies look for ways to comply with laws that put the burden of proof on them.While the bill is designed to protect children, it gives the authorities a lot of powers that are more commonly associated with fighting crime, not regulating consumer markets.

If you're tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.Australia’s federal government has conceded in the country’s High Court that its ban on under-16s using social media is a burden on the freedom of political communication – but says this burden is “indirect in nature and modest in extent.”The court heard the challenges on Tuesday and Wednesday, brought by social platform Reddit and by the Digital Freedom Project, a campaign group led by NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick. Both are arguing that Part 4A of the Online Safety Act, is unconstitutional.In court on Wednesday, government barrister Stephen Lloyd SC accepted that the ban is an effective burden on under-16s’ ability to communicate politically but called it “narrow, indirect and modest.”The legislation, which is one of the most controversial and draconian among Australia’s many censorship laws, was challenged by Reddit and the Digital Freedom Project for being incompatible with the constitution’s implied freedom of political communication.The government, as well as several states who joined the case as interveners, defended it, and in the process made some disturbing statements.The Northern Territory said that “the law imposes no real burden on the political communication of persons aged 16 years or over” – and that “it is not correct to assume that participation in political communication must not involve a cost to one’s privacy or other individual interests.”That last point is particularly egregious, as it implies that the price of political participation should be privacy – and that those who do not pay it by providing their age (and, in many cases, ID) to social platforms should not be allowed to engage in it.For instance, Tasmania’s Attorney-General said that “Parliament should be able to react to a perceived social harm and do so without having to prove the scientific evidentiary basis of that perceived harm.”That is essentially an argument in favor of evidence-free, knee-jerk legislation, which is a dangerous precedent to set.Queensland went further, stating that Parliament “is not required to wait for scientific proof before acting” and may act “prophylactically in accordance with the precautionary principle.”The Commonwealth, for its part, said that “age assurance” – i.e., verifying users’ age – “is technically viable and operationally effective” – and that none of the challengers’ alternatives “is an obvious and compelling way to provide comparable protection with a significantly lesser burden on political communication.”Lloyd said that the law was “not a blunt instrument” and that it targets features such as endless scroll, likes and comments, recommendations and push notifications – and that even a hypothetical “Reddit Kids” that did not have those features would still require Reddit to assess users’ ages.More than 5 million accounts that platforms believe belong to under-16s have been suspended or deactivated across 10 platforms since December 2025.Reddit and the Digital Freedom Project, on the other hand, said that the law is simply not justified, that it came from “an expedited legislative process of a kind apt to lead to ill thought out, overbroad legislation” – and that there is “an additional practical burden insofar as it affects persons over 16 who are unable or unwilling to comply with age verification requirements.”The social platform also pointed out that “age verification technology has serious limitations” and that “age verification can easily be bypassed” – and that even on the government’s own terms, “the Commonwealth cannot justify the burden on the freedom on the basis of pursuit of that purpose.”The Digital Freedom Project simply said that “the burden is unjustified.”As for alternatives, Reddit mentioned regulating “the content that is available to users under 16” and limiting the law “to platforms that can generally only be used with an account” – options that would still keep in place the requirement to verify age.The other states that joined the case – South Australia, Western Australia, and New South Wales – chimed in to say that the burden on political communication is either “moderate” and “incidental” (South Australia), “moderate” rather than “very substantial” (Western Australia), or “not manifestly excessive” (New South Wales).The last state also argued that the harm the law is supposed to protect against is “significant, potentially enduring, and affects a large and vulnerable segment of the population” – and that it is “not necessary” for the court to find “a scientific consensus.”Reclaim The Net has reported before about the Online Safety Act, and the age verification it mandates. In May, we wrote about a survey that showed only about 27 percent of 14- and 15-year-olds covered by the ban were complying – while 75 percent of banned teens said that circumventing the ban was easy or very easy.In June, we reported that the Australian government responded to this by more than doubling the maximum fine from A$49.5million to A$99 million.Even if the law was failing, the government decided to double down on it by increasing the punishment for those found to be in non-compliance.The case is now in the hands of the High Court judges, who will have to consider the arguments presented this week.Even if the court finds the law to be constitutional, the fact remains that it is failing to keep teenagers off social platforms – while imposing onerous age verification rules on all adults. That is a cost with no discernible benefit, and the court should say so.

If you're tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.Google, Meta, and TikTok are going to court in a bid to stop parts of a new California law from being enforced against them – but not to have it repealed.The law, AB 1709, is set to take effect on January 1, 2027, and the three tech companies are each asking for temporary and permanent injunctions to stop the state attorney general, Rob Bonta, from enforcing some of its provisions against them.Each of the three lawsuits filed on November 4 deals only with one company and its products: Meta is fighting for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads; Google for YouTube; and TikTok for TikTok Inc. and TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC.That means that even if these three giants manage to get exemptions from the law, every other platform will still have to comply with all of its requirements.None of the lawsuits target the part of the law that requires age verification for all users, in order to ensure nobody under 16 is using “addictive features” such as personalized feeds and autoplay.As TikTok’s filing puts it, “The Act therefore conditions every Californian’s access to TikTok’s personalized feed on age verification.”The three companies are, however, challenging different aspects of AB 1709, and citing different reasons, including the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.They seem to agree that the state is overstepping its bounds by trying to control online speech and content curation.Meta’s complaint calls the law “California’s latest attempt to flout that fundamental principle and appoint the State as the editor, curator, and controller of online speech.”Meta is challenging the ban on feeds and autoplay, as well as the provision that gives platforms a choice to either remove these features for under-16s or delete their accounts. The company is also contesting the part of the law that defines which services are covered by the new rules.As for the age verification requirement, while the law mentions that a platform must “verify the age of a user pursuant to the Digital Age Assurance Act,” none of the three companies are challenging this rule.In fact, Meta’s filing says the company is “rolling out several additional default protections for California teens, including more robust age-verification processes.”TikTok does take issue with the fallback method of determining age, in case a platform is “unable to verify the age of the user,” in which case it must use the age determination under SB 976. TikTok calls this “unconstitutionally vague” because the law doesn’t explain what “unable to verify” means.The draft rules prepared by the attorney general’s office explain that SB 976 will allow the use of “biological or behavioral signals, such as facial analysis, hand-gesture or gait patterns, and vocal analysis” to determine age. Other accepted methods include a cryptographic proof and government ID.The draft states that an operator “must not use as its sole method of age assurance a method that requires a user to provide government-issued identification.” And, as we reported when AB 1709 was signed, adults who want to use personalized feeds and autoplay must also verify their age.Google’s complaint says that the law “wrests control of what kids watch from their parents and gives it to the State” and bans personalized recommendations and autoplay “even if their parents consent.” Google is also challenging the rule to remove or delete accounts of under-16s who are using these features, as well as the duty to “implement reasonable measures to ensure that users under 16 years of age are not provided” the two features.TikTok, meanwhile, is asking the court to block the bans, as well as the rule that makes companies liable “without regard to whether the speaker knew the facts that made the speech unlawful.”The company also contests several terms used in the law as “unconstitutionally vague,” including “reasonable measures” and “autoplay.”As for penalties, the law provides for fines of up to $50,000 per affected minor for knowing violations, and $25,000 for negligent ones.In Reclaim The Net’s tracker of age verification laws and initiatives around the world, we noted that the way AB 1709 is designed means that “a platform cannot identify the under-16s without sorting everyone else too.” And, “every adult must be checked so the state can restrict every teenager.”Meta, Google, and TikTok are right that the state should not be allowed to edit and control online feeds and speech – but they are fighting only to make sure their products are exempt from this rule, and not to dismantle the scheme that will be used to enforce it, including the age verification checkpoint that will apply to every Californian.So if they win their cases, the big picture will be that Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok will be able to keep their allegedly addictive features – but every user in California will still have to prove their age to use these platforms, and every smaller platform will have to comply with all provisions of AB 1709.

If you're tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.The European Commission has decided to put a temporary stop to a number of national social media age verification laws in the works in several EU member countries.But it’s not because of the privacy and free speech disasters that the laws create. The reason, as explained by the EU’s executive arm, is to give priority to its own, EU-wide age verification law, the EU KIDS Act.The notification procedure is a formal one in the EU, where a country that wants to pass a law that may affect the single market is required to inform the Commission, which then has three months to react; and if it decides to, it can postpone that law for another 12 months. On October 29, the Commission did just that for Austria’s draft that wants to ban under-14s from using social media. Austria had submitted its proposal on July 28.Flanders, a region in Belgium, had its decree blocked as well, after submitting it on August 28.The Commission wants to go for an even more comprehensive, all-encompassing solution, that will cover the whole bloc.Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said, “we will not fragment our internal market.”He added that the Commission “has decided to postpone for 12 months any draft national laws overlapping with the future harmonized rules.”What the EU KIDS Act proposes is not exactly a “harmonization” of existing rules, but rather a massive expansion of age verification schemes, to cover all users, not just children.The proposal says that platforms will have to check the age of every user, using an age verification solution certified by a public authority, with the EU digital identity wallet counted as one. Platforms will have six months to check the age of existing users and disable accounts of those found to be under 15, or whose age “cannot be established” – that is, those using anonymous and pseudonymous accounts.This is the part that affects all internet users, and the scope is broad: app stores, operating systems, social media, video-sharing platforms, online games, AI companions, and general-purpose AI chatbots – as long as they are seen as a “risk” to minors’ privacy, safety, or security. Adults who don’t submit to age verification will be treated as children and given access only to the child version of the service.The EU Commission’s own attempt to develop an age verification app was hacked in under two minutes by security consultant Paul Moore, as Reclaim The Net reported. At the time, the Commission downplayed the incident, saying that the app was merely a “demo version.”Meanwhile, public feedback on the KIDS Act is open until December 3, 2026.Not all EU member countries will be waiting for the EU KIDS Act to be passed and implemented. Greece’s under-15 law was submitted for the Commission’s review long before the EU proposal was made, so it was not frozen. The law passed the parliament on October 22 and will come into force on January 1, 2027.The Commission said that the standstill period for Greece and France had “elapsed before our Kids Act proposal was made.” France’s under-15 law was passed on July 21, 2026, but the country’s Constitutional Council blocked it on August 14. A revised version of the law is expected to be presented and it should escape the freeze.Greece’s Minister of State Akis Skertsos said that “Greece is the first and only country in the EU implementing restrictions to protect minors over the next 12 months.”In Greece, platforms will have to submit their plans for age checks by early December. One of the options that is being considered is to flag users who are likely to be minors by monitoring their behavior and interactions on the platform, and then request that they confirm their age by uploading an ID document or through a video call. Two digital “wallets” – the state’s Kids Wallet and Gov.gr Wallet – are also being promoted as a means to verify age.A number of countries whose laws have been put on ice are not happy about it, but the reason is not that they care about privacy and the right to anonymity of internet users of all ages – it’s because they want to rush headlong into introducing these schemes on the national level.Austria’s Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Pröll said, “It is unacceptable for Brussels to prevent member states from enacting national laws without presenting a comprehensive European solution of its own.”Denmark’s Digitalization Minister Christina Egelund said she was “disappointed and bewildered” by the announcement. Denmark will now ask the Commission to allow it to proceed with introducing an under-15 age limit that is supposed to kick in on July 1, 2027, and Egelund said she would withdraw it once EU rules come into force.Poland is not taking the Commission’s decision to heart and is pushing ahead with its own under-15 bill, drafted by two ministries and due to be approved by the government in the first quarter of 2027.It is unclear how the Commission’s move will affect Germany, where the cabinet approved the principles of an under-13 rule on October 14, as a stopgap until the EU law is in place. The country plans to introduce an age-check app in 2027. Slovakia’s government approved an under-16 plan on August 26, while Portugal notified an under-15 law on September 28. Cyprus approved an under-15 action plan on September 16. In Italy, Senate Bill 1136 is still in the Senate.A senior Commission official estimated that the EU KIDS Act will not be implemented until well into 2028, since it still has to be agreed by the Parliament and EU member countries.This means that the fight in Brussels is not about whether to introduce more and more age verification schemes, but who will be in charge of this process. The goal is to have one law, one credential, and 27 countries adhering to it – and the current “freeze” is nothing but a waiting room for that to happen.