Social media giant engineered platforms to “shift the brain into ‘autopilot mode,’” EU says in new findings.
BRUSSELS — The European Commission asked Meta to change the addictive design of its social media platforms Instagram and Facebook or risk fines for breaking the EU’s online child safety rules.
The bloc’s executive issued its findings under the Digital Services Act on Friday, telling Meta to disable features like autoplay and infinite scroll in its default settings, to implement effective “screen time breaks” and to tweak its recommendation algorithm that is currently driven to maximize engagement.
“The Commission considers that Meta needs to implement design changes to both Instagram and Facebook,” the EU’s executive said in a statement.
The Meta findings come just days before an EU panel of experts is set to deliver a recommendation on Monday that will give further momentum to calls for setting a minimum age to use social media platforms.
Meta could face fines up to 6 percent of annual revenue for breaching the Digital Services Act if it fails to meet the Commission’s requirements issued on Friday. The tech giant can now examine the evidence the EU executive has gathered against it, and lay out its official defense.
“We disagree with these preliminary findings, which don’t accurately take into account the significant steps we’ve taken to protect teens,” Meta spokesperson Ben Walters told POLITICO.
Walters pointed to Teen Accounts, which Instagram launched in 2024. These “automatically protect teens and put parents in control,” he said.
A Commission official said ahead of the findings on Friday that these accounts can be easily dismissed and don’t provide enough friction.
Meta says in its online documentation that teens need their parent’s permission to make settings less protective.
The EU has been investigating Meta since May 2024 over potential breaches of its social media rulebook. The EU executive already accused the company in another set of findings of not doing enough to keep under-13s off its platforms and provide transparency to external stakeholders.
In its findings on Friday, the Commission found Meta failed to properly assess the risks of the addictive design of both Instagram and Facebook, including “highly personalized recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll,” which “fuel the user’s urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into ‘autopilot mode,’ contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use,” it said in a statement.
Meta hasn’t done enough to mitigate these risks, it said. Time management tools are easily dismissed and “do not lead to a meaningful reduction and control of the usage of the service.” Parental controls also require parents to have adequate technical expertise and devote time and effort to understanding the tools, it said.
The Commission in February already issued a similar finding against TikTok alleging it targeted young users with addictive designs.
This article was updated.
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