The European Commission has accused Meta of breaching European Union digital rules by building Instagram and Facebook around design features that keep users hooked, exposing the company to a fine running into billions of euros.
The preliminary findings, issued on July 10, 2026, focus on infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and highly personalised recommendation systems. Regulators said such features pushed users into an automatic mode of behaviour that fed compulsive habits.
“Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms,” Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.
She added that the Digital Services Act gave the EU a clear framework to hold platforms to account for addictive design and its effects.
The Commission said Meta had failed to assess properly the risks its design posed to the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults. It said the company had not taken account of the specific risks arising from personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll on the two platforms.
It also found that Meta had disregarded available information on how long minors spent on Instagram and Facebook at night, and on how the optimisation of formats such as reels and stories could drive excessive or compulsive use.
A second strand of the case concerns the measures Meta offers to limit those risks. Parental controls were judged effective only for adults with enough technical knowledge to understand and switch them on, while time management tools aimed at teenagers could be dismissed easily.
The Commission said Meta needed to make design changes to both platforms. Those could include turning off autoplay and infinite scroll by default, introducing screen time breaks and making its recommender system less oriented towards engagement.
Meta rejected the findings. Company spokesman Ben Walters said they did not properly reflect the steps taken to protect teenagers, pointing to teen accounts that let parents block night-time access to Instagram and cap daily use at 15 minutes.
The findings follow formal proceedings opened in May 2024 and do not prejudge the outcome. Meta can now examine the case file and reply in writing before any decision on non-compliance.
If the charges are confirmed, the company faces a penalty of up to 6 per cent of its worldwide annual turnover, which on 2025 revenue of just under $201 billion (€185 billion) would exceed €11 billion ($12 billion).
The first two fines under the Digital Services Act were €120 million against Elon Musk’s X in December and €200 million against the Chinese retailer Temu in May. A separate Commission investigation into Meta’s age checks for under-13s reached preliminary findings in April.
