Today, the European Commission (EC) has announced that it has preliminary found Meta in violation of the EU’s Digital Services Act over what it calls “the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook.”
Specifically, its investigation focused on features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and the services’ “highly personalized recommendation system.” The EC’s investigation indicated that Meta “did not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental well-being of users, including minors and vulnerable adults”.
Highly personalized recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll “promote the user’s desire to keep scrolling and shift the brain into ‘autopilot mode’, which contributes to unhealthy habits and compulsive use”, the EC’s official press release said.
It also claims that Meta “ignored available information about the time minors spend on Instagram or Facebook at night and how the optimization of its various formats – such as Reels and Stories – may lead to excessive or compulsive use of the services”.
The EC believes that Instagram and Facebook’s time management tools, including those activated by default for teenagers, “can be easily circumvented and do not lead to meaningful reduction and control of service use”. It also states that Meta’s parental controls are only effective when parents and guardians have “sufficient technical expertise”, which reduces the efficiency of such measures in addressing the risk posed by the addictive design of services.
Meta’s safety centre, which offers tips and links to mental health resources, “does not adequately reduce the risk of addictive design on Facebook and Instagram”, the EC has found. The Commission “considers that Meta needs to implement design changes to both Instagram and Facebook”, “disabling key addictive features such as ‘autoplay’ and ‘infinite scroll’ by default, implementing effective ‘screen time breaks’ and adapting its recommendation system to make it less engagement-oriented”.
Meta can now exercise his right to defend himself. If, after that step, the Commission’s views are confirmed, the EC may issue a non-compliance decision, and it may impose a fine “proportional to the nature, seriousness, recurrence and duration of the infringement”, which may be limited to 6% of Meta’s total worldwide annual turnover.