On Friday, the European Commission, the European Union’s executive governing body, issued formal preliminary charges against Meta Platforms, accusing the social media giant of violating the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) by intentionally designing Facebook and Instagram to drive compulsive user engagement and harm consumer mental health. The regulator is demanding Meta immediately disable high-risk addictive design features that are enabled by default across its platforms.
This latest enforcement action comes as part of an ongoing DSA investigation launched earlier in 2024, focused on widespread failures by Meta to protect minors from harm on its two largest platforms. The DSA, the EU’s sweeping new regulatory framework for large digital platforms, requires all major tech services operating in the bloc to conduct rigorous risk assessments of their product designs and mitigate documented harms to users — with non-compliant companies facing fines of up to 6% of their total global annual revenue.
In its official statement of preliminary findings, the Commission outlined that Meta has failed to carry out adequate, transparent assessments of how core product features on Facebook and Instagram damage the physical and mental health of all users, and particularly children and adolescents. Regulators found that while Meta does offer optional tools and parental controls to manage user screen time, these safeguards are poorly designed: they are easy for users to override or dismiss, require significant technical knowledge to activate, and do not create meaningful reductions in excessive platform use.
The Commission specifically called out two ubiquitous default features as high-risk addictive design elements: infinite scroll, which delivers an unending stream of content to users without requiring an active choice to load more posts, and automatic video autoplay. Regulators argue these features, alongside personalized content recommendation algorithms and constant push notifications, push users’ brains into passive “autopilot” mode that encourages compulsive, unchecked scrolling. The regulator also proposed additional required changes, including building more prominent prompts to encourage users to take regular screen time breaks, and restructuring Meta’s content recommendation system to reduce its overfocus on maximizing user engagement at the cost of user well-being.
Henna Virkkunen, European Commission Executive Vice-President leading tech policy enforcement, emphasized the bloc’s commitment to holding large platforms accountable for harmful product design. “Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms,” Virkkunen said in a written statement, noting that the EU will consistently enforce its rules to force meaningful change.
This is not the first time regulators have flagged Meta’s failures to protect minors this year. Earlier in 2024, the EU issued preliminary charges finding that Meta had failed to block children under the age of 13 — the company’s own stated minimum age for service access — from creating accounts on Facebook and Instagram, and had not put effective systems in place to identify and remove underage accounts after they are created.
Meta now has the opportunity to formally respond to the new charges and present its defense before the Commission issues a final binding decision. In a prepared statement released Friday, Meta pushed back on the regulator’s findings, arguing the Commission failed to acknowledge proactive changes the company has already implemented to protect teen users.
“Since this investigation began, we rolled out Teen Accounts that automatically protect teens and put parents in control – allowing them to block access to Instagram at night and cap daily screen time at just 15 minutes,” Meta said. The company added that it shares the Commission’s goal of delivering safe, positive online experiences for teens and plans to continue constructive engagement with regulators on the issue.