EU Commission investigates Meta for youth protection offences

The social media giant Meta may have violated the protection of minors. On Thursday, the EU Commission initiated proceedings against the parent company of Facebook and Instagram under the Digital Services Act (DSA). "The Commission fears that the systems of Facebook and Instagram, including their algorithms, trigger addictive behavior in children and create so-called rabbit hole effects," the EU institution announced.

Part of the investigation is how Meta complies with the DSA obligations to reduce certain risks. This concerns issues that promote addictive behavior and a rabbit hole effect, as well as compliance with age restrictions. The term rabbit hole effect describes the phenomenon of getting lost on the internet and following one link after another. The Commission wants to examine how Meta ensures that young people do not have access to inappropriate content. It is also looking at how well the company implements privacy, security and the protection of minors – for example in the default privacy settings.

Further proceedings for misleading advertising have been ongoing since April

Meta submitted a risk assessment report in September 2023. The proceedings are based on the preliminary analysis of the report, Meta's responses to the request for information on the protection of minors and the methodology of the risk assessment to the Commission, publicly available reports and the Commission's own analysis, according to the statement.

If the Commission's suspicions are confirmed, this would be a violation of the GDPR, the Commission states. The institution had already initiated proceedings against Meta at the end of April. This concerned misleading advertising, political content and other points of contact in the run-up to the European elections on June 9.

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