EU Says Meta Built Instagram and Facebook to Be Addictive, Violating Digital Rules

The European Commission concluded Friday that Meta broke the EU's core digital rulebook by designing Instagram and Facebook to be habit-forming, in a preliminary finding that puts the company at risk of a fine worth up to 6% of its annual global turnover.

The Commission says Meta failed to properly weigh how certain design choices affect the physical well-being of users, particularly minors and other vulnerable people, as required under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU's main law governing how online platforms operate. The features singled out in the report are the ones that make social media feel bottomless: infinite scroll, which keeps loading new content without a natural stopping point, autoplay video, push notifications, and recommendation algorithms tuned tightly to individual users. Regulators describe the cumulative effect as pushing people into what they call "autopilot mode" — scrolling less by choice than by momentum.

The report goes further than flagging the features themselves. It accuses Meta of sitting on data it already had about how these systems play out in practice, including how long young users stay on Instagram or Facebook late at night and how specific formats, like Reels or Stories, tend to drive excessive use. In the Commission's view, Meta had the information needed to see the risk and didn't act on it adequately.

As remedies, the Commission says Meta needs to overhaul the defaults, not just offer opt-outs. That includes switching off autoplay and infinite scroll by default rather than leaving them on unless a user digs through settings to disable them, and building in enforced screen-time breaks rather than optional reminders.

Meta is pushing back hard. A company spokesperson said in a statement: "We disagree with these preliminary findings, which don't accurately take into account the significant steps we've taken to protect teens." The company points to its Teen Accounts feature, rolled out since the investigation began, which it says automatically applies protections and gives parents more control, including the ability to block nighttime access and cap daily use at 15 minutes. Meta added that it "shares the European Commission's commitment to providing teens with safe, positive online experiences" and plans to keep engaging with regulators.

A second strike this year

This isn't Meta's only DSA problem in 2026. Back in April, the Commission found the company had failed to keep users under 13 off its platforms, a separate violation of the same law. Combined with Friday's findings, it means Meta has now been cited twice this year for the same underlying issue: not doing enough to protect younger and more vulnerable users from how its own products are built.

The timing also lines up with mounting legal trouble in the United States. In March, two separate court rulings went against Meta. One found that the design of its platforms contributed to addiction and mental health harm among young people. The other determined Meta had misled users about how safe its platforms actually were for children. At the time, Meta told CNBC it disagreed with those conclusions too, maintaining that Instagram and Facebook are meant for people 13 and older and that it has systems in place to catch and remove underage accounts.

Taken together, the pattern is hard to miss: regulators and courts on both sides of the Atlantic are converging on the same argument, that the mechanics which make these platforms so engaging, the very features that keep engagement metrics high, are also the features doing the most harm to younger and more vulnerable users.

What happens next

Friday's findings are preliminary, which means Meta still has a chance to respond before anything becomes final. But if the Commission's conclusions hold, the financial exposure is significant. A fine of up to 6% of global annual turnover would be one of the largest penalties possible under the DSA, a law the EU has used aggressively since it came into force to police how major platforms operate rather than just what content they host.

The bigger question is what Meta actually changes as a result. Teen Accounts already show the company is willing to build in guardrails when pressure mounts, but the Commission's demands go further, calling for default settings to shift across the board rather than for teens alone. Whether Meta agrees to flip autoplay and infinite scroll off by default for all users, or fights the finding instead, will say a lot about how much leverage EU regulators actually have over the design decisions that sit at the heart of the social media business model.