Meta was asked by EU regulators on Friday to make major design changes to Instagram and Facebook to make the services less addictive or risk heavy fines.
Regulators in Brussels said the “addictive design” of Meta’s two social media services breached EU law and needed to remove features such as “infinite scrolling” and auto-play videos. The tech giant should also introduce new “screen time breaks” and adjust its recommendation algorithm to make it “less engagement-oriented,” the authorities said.
The commission’s findings are preliminary, and Meta now has time to respond to the allegations before a final judgment is handed down. A fine could run up to 6 percent of Meta’s global revenue, although regulators rarely issue fines of that size.
The ruling is an unusually direct attempt to force specific product design changes. It is the latest sign of the aggressive approach European regulators have taken to confronting social media companies over what are seen as deliberately subversive efforts to hook users, especially children. In February, EU authorities accused TikTok of using similar design tricks to keep users coming back again and again.
Ben Walters, a spokesman for Meta, said the company disagreed with the findings, which “do not accurately reflect the significant steps we have taken to protect teenagers.” He said the company has introduced teen accounts that allow parents to block access to Instagram at night and limit daily screen time.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-nation bloc, is also weighing rules that could exclude children from social media because of the apps’ addictive features – following Australia’s lead.
Europe’s aggressive regulation of the tech industry has drawn criticism from President Trump, who sees it as an attack on American companies.
In Brussels, officials have said they are considering where the line should be drawn between a well-designed app that users enjoy and a harmfully addictive one. The European Union, home to around 450 million people, is one of the world’s biggest markets for social media, but authorities there have become increasingly skeptical of the companies’ way of operating.
On Friday, European regulators concluded that Meta had gone too far. The company was accused of violating a 2022 law, the Digital Services Act, by using design tactics to keep users, especially teenagers, hooked on Instagram and Facebook.
The authorities said features such as personalized recommendations and an infinite scroll that constantly delivers new content “suppress the user’s urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into autopilot mode.”
Such features lead to “unhealthy habits and compulsive use,” authorities added.
Regulators said Meta did not adequately assess the risks of its products, including ignoring information about how much time users under 18 spent on Instagram and Facebook at night. At the same time, features like Reels and Stories led to “excessive or compulsive” use of the services, authorities said.
Meta’s existing time-management tools are easily circumvented by younger users, and its parental controls are only effective if parents are tech-savvy and can spend a long time monitoring, regulators said.
“Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms,” Henna Virkkunen, the executive vice-president of the European Commission, which oversees digital policy, said in a statement. “The Digital Services Act provides a clear framework to hold platforms accountable for the addictive design and effects of their services. We are fully committed to enforcing our legislation in Europe.”
Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels.
