The European Commission opens proceedings against Meta for protecting the rights of minors on Facebook and Instagram

On Thursday, May 16, the European Commission opened formal proceedings to assess whether Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, violated the Digital Services Act  regarding minors. This was reported by UNN with reference to a statement by the European Commission.

Details

The EU is concerned that Facebook's and Instagram's algorithms may encourage behavioral addictions in children, as well as create so-called "rabbit hole effects." In addition, the Commission is also concerned about the age verification and verification methods implemented by Meta.

The current proceedings concern the following areas: 

• Meta's compliance with the DSA's obligations to assess and mitigate risks posed by the design of Facebook and Instagram's online interfaces, which may exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors and be addictive and/or exacerbate the so-called "rabbit hole" effect .
  
• Meta's compliance with the DSA's requirements for mitigating measures to prevent minors from accessing objectionable content, including age verification tools used by Meta that may not be reasonable, proportionate, and effective.
  

• Meta's compliance with the DSA's obligations to implement appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, security and safety for minors , including with respect to default privacy settings for minors as part of the design and operation of their recommendation systems.

It is noted that the European Commission will conduct an in-depth investigation as a matter of priority and will continue to collect evidence, for example, by sending additional requests for information, conducting interviews or inspections. 

Addendum

The European Commission adds that this is not the first time they have taken such actions against Meta. In particular, on April 30, the EU opened proceedings against Facebook and Instagram regarding misleading advertising, political content, notification and action mechanisms, and access to data for researchers.

In addition, the proceedings concern the absence of an effective third-party real-time public discourse and monitoring tool in the run-up to the European Parliament elections. 

Recall

The EU introduces new rules requiring social media platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook and others to take measures to mitigate risks to electionsor face fines of up to 6% of their annual global turnover.