Meta’s social media platforms are coming under growing legal fire over their allegedly addictive designs. Still, the company can’t seem to stop thinking up new ways to monitor users more closely and embed itself even deeper into their lives. The European Commission this week told Meta to make major changes to Facebook and Instagram that would make them less addictive. Following a two-year investigation, the Commission’s preliminary findings determined that the platforms’ designs violate the European Union’s laws governing digital services. The investigation focused on features such as infinite scroll and autoplay, along with highly personalized recommendation algorithms that continually feed users new content.
European regulators also said Meta’s efforts to address addiction risks, including time-management tools, parental controls, and Teen Accounts, are not effective. Regulators now want Meta to disable features such as autoplay and infinite scroll by default, introduce more effective screen-time breaks, and make its recommendation systems less focused on driving up engagement.
“Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms,” said the Commission’s Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, in a press release. Meta now has an opportunity to respond to the preliminary findings. But if the Commission ultimately confirms them, the company could face a fine of up to 6% of its annual worldwide revenue. For its part, Meta told Gizmodo that it disagrees with the Commission’s findings.
