EU tells Meta to disable ‘addictive’ Facebook and Instagram features under Digital Services Act
EU regulators say Meta must disable ‘addictive’ features like infinite scroll on Facebook and Instagram under the Digital Services Act, risking fines up to 6%.
The European Commission has preliminarily concluded that Meta’s design choices for Facebook and Instagram create addiction-like patterns and must be altered, including turning off autoplay and infinite scroll by default. (apnews.com)
Commission cites specific design risks
The Commission’s interim findings say Meta failed to adequately assess the risks its design features pose to users’ physical and mental health, with special concern for minors. (apnews.com)
Officials singled out features such as autoplay, personalized recommendation engines, push notifications and infinite scroll as mechanisms that encourage continued use and “autopilot” consumption. (techcrunch.com)
The EU’s action comes under the bloc’s Digital Services Act, which requires large platforms to identify and mitigate systemic risks stemming from their services or face significant sanctions. (techcrunch.com)
Meta’s response and Teen Accounts defence
Meta disputed the Commission’s preliminary assessment and said it has already introduced measures intended to protect young people, including so‑called Teen Accounts and parental controls. (apnews.com)
In its statement, Meta said Teen Accounts default to stricter privacy, limit who can contact teens and offer parents tools to block night‑time access and cap daily screen time to short periods such as 15 minutes. (apnews.com)
The company said it will continue to engage with the Commission, while reserving the right to contest the preliminary findings before any final decision is taken. (apnews.com)
Concerns over under‑age sign‑ups and account checks
Separately, EU investigators have found that Meta’s safeguards were insufficient to stop children under 13 from creating accounts and that the firm did not reliably identify or remove underage users after account creation. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)
The Commission noted that self‑declared birth dates can be falsified during sign‑up and that existing verification and detection mechanisms did not meet the regulator’s standards for protecting minors. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)
Those earlier findings fed into the broader probe that now targets platform design as a systemic risk under the DSA, with regulators seeking stronger technical and product controls. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)
How features are said to drive compulsive use
Regulators describe infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations as features that reduce friction between content items and discourage deliberate stopping points, which can lead to prolonged, repetitive consumption. (techcrunch.com)
The Commission highlighted research and internal platform data suggesting that design defaults and personalized feeds increase the likelihood users — including vulnerable teens — spend excessive time on apps. (techcrunch.com)
Proposed design remedies from the Commission include making addictive features opt‑in rather than on by default, strengthening prompts to take breaks and reworking recommender systems to prioritise user well‑being over raw engagement. (apnews.com)
Possible penalties and next procedural steps
If the preliminary views are upheld, the Commission may issue a formal non‑compliance decision that can carry fines up to 6% of a company’s global annual turnover under the DSA. (techcrunch.com)
Meta now has the opportunity to respond to the provisional findings and supply additional evidence before regulators reach a final decision, a process that may take weeks or months. (apnews.com)
The outcome could set a precedent for how national and EU regulators police product design and content recommendation systems across a range of social platforms. (techcrunch.com)
Europe’s wider regulatory push on platform design
The Commission’s action against Meta follows an earlier preliminary determination that TikTok’s design features also breach the DSA, underscoring a broader regulatory effort to curb engagement‑driven product designs. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)
EU officials, including Executive Vice‑President Henna Virkkunen, have framed the interventions as part of a mission to prioritise physical and mental health protections in digital services. (apnews.com)
Lawmakers in several member states have meanwhile advanced complementary proposals on age limits and parental controls, signaling sustained political pressure on platforms. (theguardian.com)
The Commission’s preliminary findings mark the latest step in a multipart inquiry opened in 2024 and sharpen the spotlight on how major tech firms balance product growth with user safety.
