Meta Faces Fine After Instagram and Facebook Deemed Addictive

The European Commission (EC) announced that two Meta platforms, Instagram and Facebook, have been preliminarily found to be in violation of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) due to findings of addictive service design. The decision was announced on Friday (10/7) based on the results of an EC investigation, as reported by GSM Arena. In the investigation conducted by the EC, several features were examined, including infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and personalised recommendation systems. The investigation concluded that Meta did not sufficiently assess the risks of its services, which are designed to be addictive, to the physical and mental well-being of users. The EC also stated that the addictive effects not only impact adults but also underage children who use both platforms. Highly personalised recommendations, autoplay, and infinite scrolling ‘trigger users’ desire to keep scrolling and switch the brain to autopilot mode, contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use,’ according to an official EC press release. In its findings, the EC stated that Meta ‘ignored available information about the time minors spend on Instagram or Facebook at night and how the optimisation of its various formats—such as Reels and Stories—can lead to excessive or compulsive use of the services’. Furthermore, although Meta provides time management features for Instagram and Facebook, including those automatically activated for teenagers, ‘these features can be easily ignored and do not result in meaningful reduction and control over the use of the services’. The EC also stated that parental controls on Meta’s services are only effective if parents and guardians ‘have adequate technical expertise’, thereby reducing the efficiency of these measures in addressing the risks posed by the addictive service design. Meta’s Safety Centre, which features tips and links to mental health resources, was also deemed not to ‘sufficiently mitigate the risks of addictive design on Facebook and Instagram’, according to the EC’s findings. The EU authority ‘considers that Meta needs to implement design changes to Instagram and Facebook’, ‘automatically disabling key addictive features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling, implementing effective ’screen time breaks’, and adjusting its recommendation systems to be less oriented towards user engagement’. Meta has the right to present its defence against the EC’s preliminary findings. If, after that step, the EC’s view is confirmed, the EC can issue a non-compliance decision, which could trigger a fine ‘proportionate to the nature, severity, repetition, and duration of the infringement’. They could face a maximum fine of 6 per cent of Meta’s total annual worldwide turnover.