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EU vs. TikTok: Who’s Really Crazy Here?

February 08, 2026 • By Azzar Budiyanto

Aiyah, Here We Go Again: The EU vs. TikTok, A Love-Hate Story of Data and Dopamine

Alright, gather ’round, you digital zombies! Your resident ‘Wong Edan’ tech prophet is here, fresh off a caffeine overdose and ready to spill the tea, or rather, the data juice. So, the European Union, bless their bureaucratic hearts, has finally woken up and pointed a finger at TikTok, saying its infinite scroll is “too addictive.” They’re even suggesting TikTok might need to “change the basic design” of its app to comply with the law. My friends, is anyone else thinking, “Duh! And also, where have you been for the last five years, under a rock made of GDPR documents?”

It’s like finding out water is wet, or that politicians sometimes say silly things. TikTok is addictive? Mampus! No way! Next, you’ll tell me the sky is blue. This revelation, hitting the headlines just a couple of days ago, feels less like breaking news and more like a collective, exasperated sigh. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has officially accused TikTok of “addictive design” and is pushing for concrete changes, threatening fines that could make ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) choke on its boba tea – up to 6% of its global turnover. That’s not just a slap on the wrist; that’s a full-on, “you’re grounded for life” kind of punishment.

They’re saying TikTok’s infinite scroll and algorithmic content delivery are likely in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA, for those of you not fluent in Euro-speak, is the EU’s shiny new hammer for cracking down on online platforms, making them more accountable and safer for users. Especially for the ‘anak-anak’ (kids) who are basically growing up with TikTok glued to their faces. The big bosses in Brussels are basically saying, “Hey TikTok, your ‘For You Page’ is less ‘for you’ and more ‘for our profit margins at the expense of mental well-being.'” And frankly, as someone who occasionally finds himself in a 3 AM scroll trance, I can’t say they’re entirely wrong. But let’s dig into the juicy, techy, and psychological bits, shall we? Because this isn’t just about TikTok; it’s about the very fabric of our digital existence.

The Vicious Cycle: Deconstructing TikTok’s Infinite Scroll and the Dopamine Casino

Let’s get technical for a hot minute. What exactly is infinite scroll, and why is it the digital equivalent of a siren song leading us to screen-time shipwreck? At its core, infinite scroll is a UX pattern designed to remove any friction from content consumption. Instead of clicking “next page” or “load more,” new content simply appears as you reach the bottom of your current view.

Technically, it’s a clever implementation of:

  • Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) / API Calls: When you scroll near the end of the loaded content, the app makes a background request (an API call) to the server. The server then sends back a new batch of videos/posts.
  • Lazy Loading: Content isn’t loaded until it’s actually needed. This saves bandwidth and processing power, making the app feel incredibly smooth and fast. You don’t wait; the content waits for you to scroll into its existence.
  • Seamless UI: There are no jarring transitions, no “loading…” spinners to interrupt your flow. It’s designed to be a continuous, almost subconscious stream.

This technical elegance translates directly into powerful psychological manipulation. It’s a classic example of variable ratio reinforcement schedule, a concept straight out of B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning playbook. Think of a slot machine. You pull the lever (scroll), and sometimes you get a jackpot (a hilarious, engaging, or perfectly personalized video), and sometimes you get nothing (a mediocre video). The unpredictable nature of the reward is what makes it so incredibly addictive. You just know the next pull might be the one!

“The genius of infinite scroll lies in its ability to mimic a perpetually rewarding slot machine, where the payoff is not money, but a fleeting hit of novelty, connection, or amusement. Your thumb becomes the lever, and your brain becomes the unwitting gambler.”

But TikTok takes this a step further with its legendary “For You Page” (FYP) algorithm. This isn’t just a random feed; it’s a hyper-personalized, constantly learning, predictive analytics beast.

  • Data Ingestion: Every tap, every pause, every swipe, every like, every share, every rewatch – it’s all data. The algorithm swallows it whole.
  • Feature Engineering: It identifies patterns: what kind of music do you like? What niches do you engage with? How long do you watch certain types of videos? Do you prefer comedy, tutorials, dance challenges, or cat videos?
  • Recommendation Engine: Using machine learning models (often deep neural networks), it predicts what you’ll want to see next with frightening accuracy. It’s not just showing you more of what you liked; it’s showing you what you might like, even before you know it yourself. This creates an irresistible sense of constant novelty and relevance.
  • Feedback Loop: Your interaction with the recommended content then further refines the algorithm, creating a powerful, self-optimizing loop.

The FYP, combined with the short-form video format, is the perfect storm. Each video is a micro-dose of dopamine. The cost of entry is low (just a second or two), the reward is immediate, and if it’s not good, a simple flick of the thumb brings the next potential hit. There’s no time for boredom, no time for reflection, just an endless stream of curated stimulation.

My ‘Wong Edan’ take? You think you’re choosing what to watch? Hah! You’re being chosen, my friend. The algorithm is the puppet master, and your thumb is merely its obedient servant. It understands your desires, your weaknesses, your fleeting interests better than you do yourself. It’s not magic; it’s just really, really good (or evil, depending on your perspective) engineering mixed with basic human psychology. And the EU? They’re just now realizing that this isn’t just “engaging content”; it’s a carefully crafted digital cage.

The Digital Services Act (DSA): Europe’s Big Stick for Big Tech

So, what’s this DSA all about, and why is it suddenly flexing on TikTok? The Digital Services Act, which came into full effect in late 2023, is one of the EU’s landmark pieces of legislation aimed at making the internet a safer, more accountable place. It’s designed to regulate online platforms, especially the “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) like TikTok, Google, Meta, and X, which have over 45 million active monthly users in the EU.

The DSA has several key objectives:

  • Combatting Illegal Content: Ensuring platforms swiftly remove illegal content like hate speech, disinformation, and child abuse material.
  • Protecting Users’ Fundamental Rights: This includes freedom of speech, privacy, and protection from discrimination.
  • Enhancing Transparency and Accountability: Platforms must be transparent about their algorithms, content moderation policies, and ad targeting.
  • Managing Systemic Risks: This is where TikTok’s “addictive design” comes in. VLOPs are required to identify, analyze, and mitigate systemic risks arising from their services. These risks include negative effects on fundamental rights, mental and physical health, civic discourse, and even democratic processes.

The European Commission believes that TikTok’s design features, particularly the infinite scroll and highly personalized FYP, contribute to systemic risks under the DSA. Why? Because they can lead to behavioral addictions, psychological distress, and impact the mental well-being of users, especially minors. The unlimited access to short, engaging content, without natural stopping points, is seen as directly contributing to excessive screen time and potentially harmful behavioral patterns.

“The DSA isn’t just about what you post; it’s about how the platform makes you feel, how it manipulates your time, and whether its core design inadvertently turns you into a scrolling zombie. Europe is finally looking at the architecture of addiction, not just the content flowing through it.”

The preliminary findings from the Commission suggest that TikTok “needs to change the basic design of its service.” This isn’t a suggestion; it’s a mandate backed by serious financial teeth. As mentioned, failure to comply could result in fines of up to 6% of ByteDance’s global turnover. Let that sink in. For a company valued in the hundreds of billions, that’s not just pocket change; that’s a whole lot of ‘uang kaget’ (surprise money) that could vanish. It’s a message to all big tech: “We mean business, and we’re not afraid to hit you where it hurts: your wallet.”

Beyond the Scroll: Other Digital Dark Arts at Play

While the infinite scroll is the star of this regulatory drama, let’s not pretend it’s the only player in TikTok’s addictive arsenal. Oh no, my friends, the dark patterns run deeper than that. These aren’t just features; they’re psychological levers designed to keep you hooked.

  • Notifications: The Siren’s Call: That little “ping,” that red badge, that push notification saying “your video is blowing up!” or “X, Y, and Z posted a new video!” These aren’t just informational; they’re carefully crafted triggers. They create a sense of urgency and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Our primitive brains are wired to respond to novelty and potential rewards, and notifications exploit this perfectly. They pull you back into the app, breaking concentration on whatever you were doing, to feed the beast.
  • Gamification: Likes, Shares, Comments – The Digital Scoreboard: TikTok, like many social platforms, turns social interaction into a quantifiable game. Likes, shares, follower counts, comments – these are all metrics. They tap into our innate desire for social validation and achievement. Posting a video becomes a quest for higher numbers, a mini-game to see how many people will approve. And when you get those numbers, boom – dopamine hit! This encourages creation, yes, but also constant checking and re-engagement to see if your “score” has improved.
  • Sound Design: Auditory Hooks: Ever notice the specific sound effects when you get a like or a new follower? Or the trending audio that becomes an earworm? Sound plays a crucial, often overlooked, role in digital addiction. Specific audio cues can become conditioned stimuli, subconsciously pulling you into the app or enhancing the feeling of reward. The use of trending audio isn’t just for discoverability; it creates a sense of belonging and cultural currency, drawing you deeper into the platform’s ecosystem.
  • Auto-Play and Seamless Transitions: Eliminating Friction: When one video ends, the next one begins instantly. There’s no decision-making required, no moment for reflection, no friction to break the trance. This seamlessness is a design triumph for engagement but a nightmare for self-control. It reduces the cognitive load required to continue consuming, making it effortless to slide from one minute to an hour.
  • The “Sunk Cost Fallacy” in Scrolling: “I’ve already scrolled for so long, what’s one more video?” or “I haven’t found a really good one yet, I’ll just keep looking.” This psychological trap, where we justify continued investment (time, effort) based on previous investment, keeps us locked in. We feel like we’re due for a good video, like we’ve earned it through our relentless scrolling.

These aren’t accidental features; they are meticulously engineered components of an engagement optimization strategy. They leverage well-understood principles of human psychology to maximize screen time, and by extension, ad impressions and data collection. The EU, in its newfound ‘wisdom’, is finally recognizing that these aren’t just “user-friendly” features; they are digital chains.

The Human Element: Why We Fall for the Trap (And Why We Should Stop Blaming Ourselves Entirely)

Now, before we exclusively blame the big bad tech companies, let’s acknowledge that we, the users, are also active participants in this circus. Our brains, bless their ancient, evolutionary hearts, are simply not built for the relentless, hyper-stimulating environment of modern social media. We are, at our core, simple creatures, easily amused, and craving certain things:

  • Novelty: Our brains are wired to seek out new information, new stimuli. It’s an evolutionary advantage – helps us find food, avoid danger, learn. TikTok’s FYP is an endless fount of novelty.
  • Social Connection & Validation: We are social animals. We crave belonging, acceptance, and validation from our peers. Likes, comments, followers – these are powerful proxies for social approval, activating the same reward pathways as real-world social interaction.
  • Immediate Rewards: Our brains prefer immediate gratification over delayed gratification. The short-form video format and the instant feedback loop of social media are perfectly aligned with this preference.

The dopamine feedback loop is the star here. Dopamine isn’t just the “pleasure hormone”; it’s primarily involved in motivation and reward-seeking behavior. When you anticipate a reward (like a funny video or a positive comment), dopamine surges. When you get the reward, another hit. This reinforces the behavior that led to the reward, creating a strong learning mechanism. TikTok is a perfectly calibrated dopamine dispenser, training your brain to keep scrolling, keep watching, keep engaging.

The illusion of control is perhaps the most insidious aspect. We think we can stop. “Just one more video,” we tell ourselves. But the app is designed to make that “one more” incredibly hard to resist. It removes all natural stopping cues, leverages our psychological vulnerabilities, and constantly presents a fresh, irresistible bait. It’s like asking a shark not to eat after it smells blood.

My ‘Wong Edan’ take on this? We’re not entirely to blame, but we’re not entirely innocent either. We walked into the digital casino willingly, but these tech giants? They’re like master puppeteers with a PhD in human weakness, and a whole army of data scientists and UX designers pulling the strings. They know precisely which buttons to push in our primate brains. So yes, personal responsibility matters, but when the deck is so heavily stacked against you, maybe it’s time to demand the casino changes its rules. Or, you know, just burn it down. (Kidding! Mostly.)

TikTok’s Dilemma: Engage or Comply? Can They Have Their Cake and Eat It Too?

Now, let’s consider TikTok’s side of the argument, or at least, what their public relations teams are likely scrambling to put together. They’ll probably trot out their existing efforts:

  • Screen Time Prompts: “You’ve been watching for X hours! Time for a break?” – easily dismissed with a tap.
  • Parental Controls: Tools for parents to limit their children’s screen time – often underutilized or circumvented.
  • Well-being Campaigns: Promoting digital detox or mental health awareness – admirable, but often drowned out by the core addictive design.

The fundamental problem for TikTok is that engagement is their product. Their entire business model is predicated on maximizing user time on the app. More time equals more data, more ad impressions, and ultimately, more revenue for ByteDance. So, when the EU demands they “change the basic design,” it strikes at the very heart of their moneymaking machine.

What could “changing the basic design” actually entail?

  • Disabling Infinite Scroll: This is the most direct intervention. Instead of endless scrolling, what if there was a hard stop?

    • “Load More” Button: A classic approach. You have to consciously decide to get more content. This adds friction, forcing a moment of reflection.
    • Fixed Playlists/Sessions: After a certain number of videos, the app might stop and suggest a break, or present a curated “playlist” that ends, rather than an infinite stream.
    • Timed Sessions: The app could automatically pause after a set period (e.g., 30 minutes) and require explicit user action to continue, making the “break” harder to dismiss than a simple prompt.
  • Mandatory Breaks/Screen Time Limits: Not just dismissible prompts, but actual forced pauses where the app becomes temporarily unusable. This would be a significant UX shift, potentially frustrating users initially but possibly leading to healthier habits over time.
  • Algorithmic Changes: The FYP algorithm could be tweaked to prioritize content that promotes well-being, variety, or even educational content, over content that merely maximizes engagement. It could actively detect and reduce patterns indicative of excessive consumption or filter bubbles. This is a subtle but profound change from “engagement-first” to “well-being-aware.”
  • Transparency and Control: Giving users more granular control over what they see, how much they see, and making the algorithm’s decisions more transparent.

The technical feasibility of these changes is high; the UX implications, however, are massive. Would users migrate to platforms that still offer infinite, uninterrupted bliss? Would TikTok lose its competitive edge? These are billion-dollar questions for ByteDance. It’s a tightrope walk between complying with regulations and maintaining the very essence of what made them a global phenomenon.

The Domino Effect: A Glimpse into the Future of Digital Design (and Regulation)

This isn’t just about TikTok, my friends. This is a seismic tremor in the digital landscape. If the EU successfully forces TikTok to fundamentally alter its “addictive design,” it sets a powerful precedent for all other social media platforms. You think Meta isn’t watching this with bated breath? Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, even the infinite feeds of Facebook and X – they all employ similar mechanisms to maximize engagement.

  • Ripple Effect on Other Platforms: If TikTok has to change, can Instagram Reels realistically continue with an identical infinite scroll model in the EU? Probably not without facing similar scrutiny. This could lead to a broader industry shift towards more responsible design practices across the board.
  • The Shift to “Well-being-Centric Design”: For years, UI/UX design has been driven by engagement metrics – clicks, views, time on site. This regulatory push could force a re-evaluation towards “well-being-centric design” or “ethical AI,” where user health and psychological impact are primary considerations, not just afterthoughts.
  • A Global Regulatory Patchwork: The EU is often a trailblazer in digital regulation (GDPR being the prime example). If they succeed, other regions – perhaps even individual US states – might follow suit, creating a complex web of compliance requirements for global tech companies. This could lead to geo-fenced versions of apps, where users in different regions have vastly different experiences.
  • Economic Impact: Companies whose entire business model relies on maximal screen time will face immense pressure to innovate in ways that are both engaging and compliant. This could spark a new wave of creativity in user experience, or it could simply mean less profit for some of the biggest players.

My ‘Wong Edan’ conclusion to all this digital drama? This isn’t just about banning infinite scroll; this is about whether we, as a society, are content to be lab rats in a giant digital experiment, constantly chasing the next dopamine hit, or if we finally grow up and demand some damn control over our own attention and well-being. It’s about drawing a line in the sand and saying, “Your profit margins do not supersede our mental health.”

Or maybe, just maybe, this whole thing will just be another round of regulatory theater, TikTok will make some minor tweaks, pay a fine, and we’ll all go back to happily scrolling our lives away. Because, let’s be honest, sometimes being a ‘wong edan’ scrolling through endless cat videos is just easier than facing the real world. But for a brief, shining moment, the EU has shone a light on the insidious nature of our digital addictions. What we do with that light is up to all of us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I hear my phone vibrating… probably just another important notification… Gila!