EU Threatens Meta With Fines Over Addictive Features on Facebook and Instagram

The European Commission has issued a formal warning to Meta, demanding the company overhaul design features across Facebook and Instagram that regulators say are engineered to encourage excessive and compulsive use or face heavy financial penalties. The decision, announced on Friday, marks another major step in the bloc’s enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes strict obligations on large online platforms to protect users’ well‑being and rights.

According to the Commission, Meta is in breach of DSA requirements by prioritizing user engagement over user health through features such as infinite scroll, automatic video playback, frequent push notifications, and highly personalized recommendation algorithms. These tools, regulators argue, are designed to keep users scrolling for as long as possible, often shifting behavior into what researchers describe as “autopilot mode,” a state where continued usage becomes habitual rather than intentional.

Risks to Mental Health and Well‑Being

The investigation found that Meta failed to conduct adequate risk assessments regarding how these design choices affect physical and mental health, particularly among minors and vulnerable adults. Regulators pointed to internal and independent studies showing that many young users spend several hours per day on the platforms, often late into the night, and that features like Reels and Stories create continuous streams of content that are difficult to disengage from.

“The evidence shows that Meta’s current safeguards are insufficient,” the Commission stated in its preliminary findings. “Tools intended to help users manage their time, including those enabled by default for teenagers c, can be easily dismissed or bypassed, and they do not deliver meaningful control over usage.”

The Commission highlighted that even when users set time limits, the platform’s design often encourages them to keep going, with no clear stopping point or regular breaks built into the experience.

Required Changes

To bring its services into compliance, the European authorities are asking Meta to make significant changes, including:

• Disabling autoplay and infinite scroll by default, so users must actively choose to continue viewing content;

• Introducing mandatory, effective screen‑time reminders and breaks that cannot be easily turned off;

• Revising its recommendation algorithms to reduce the focus on maximizing engagement, and instead prioritize content relevance and user well‑being;

• Providing clearer, more accessible controls to limit notifications and control how the platform suggests new content.

These measures are intended to give users more agency over their time and reduce the psychological pressure to stay connected.

Potential Penalties

This is only the preliminary stage of the process. Meta now has the opportunity to review the full evidence file, submit its own analysis, and present arguments to the Commission. However, if the final decision confirms the breaches, the company could face a fine of up to 6% of its total global annual revenue, a sum that could run into billions of dollars, given Meta’s financial scale.

The warning comes as part of a pattern of increasing regulatory pressure. Earlier this year, in April, the Commission concluded that Meta was not doing enough to prevent children under the age of 13 from accessing its platforms, in violation of the same DSA rules.

Parallel Scrutiny in the United States

The issue of platform design and its impact on young users is also playing out in the United States. Just this week, Meta revealed in a court filing that four U.S. states are seeking penalties totaling $1.4 trillion in a lawsuit alleging that the company intentionally designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive, while misleading the public and regulators about the risks they pose to children and teenagers.

Critics argue that while the platforms offer benefits for communication and creativity, their business model, which relies heavily on advertising revenue tied to time spent on the app, creates an inherent conflict of interest. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are now pushing to realign those incentives with public health and safety.

Meta has not yet issued a formal response to the EU’s latest findings, but industry observers expect the company to push back, arguing that it already offers tools to help users manage their experience and that the features in question are popular choices for many people.