Meta in EU’s crosshairs: Instagram and Facebook fail to protect minors under 13

The European Commission is challenging Meta. According to the preliminary findings of the EU Executive, Instagram and Facebook are in violation of the Digital Services Act (DSA) for failing to adopt effective measures to prevent children under the age of 13 from accessing their services.

The accusation is clear: despite Meta’s terms and conditions setting the minimum age for access at 13, the systems deployed by the company to enforce this limit have proven to be substantially ineffective. A child can simply enter a false birth date during registration without any verification mechanism intervening to check its veracity.

Reporting a minor? It takes seven clicks

Making the protection system even more fragile is the internal tool for reporting users under the minimum age, which is cumbersome and poorly functional. Reaching the reporting module requires up to seven clicks, and the form is not even pre-filled with the user’s data. But the problem doesn’t stop with the procedure: even when a report is successfully submitted, there is often no concrete follow-up. In most cases, the reported minor simply continues to use the platform without issue.

Added to this is a risk assessment that the Commission defines as “incomplete and arbitrary.” Data collected across the European Union indicates that approximately 10-12% of children under 13 regularly access Instagram or Facebook. According to Brussels, Meta ignored this evidence, as well as available scientific proof regarding the greater vulnerability of younger children to the potential harms associated with using these platforms.

What Meta risks

If the preliminary findings are definitively confirmed, the Commission could issue a non-compliance decision and impose a fine proportional to the infringement, which can reach up to 6% of the group’s total annual global turnover. Periodic penalty payments are also foreseen to compel the platforms to comply.

Meta will now have the opportunity to examine the documents in the investigative file and respond in writing to the allegations. The platforms may also adopt corrective measures in line with the 2025 Child Protection Law guidelines, while the European Board for Digital Services will be consulted in parallel.

Today’s findings are part of the formal proceedings initiated by the Commission on May 16, 2024, and are based on an in-depth analysis of Meta’s internal risk assessment reports, corporate data and documents, and the company’s responses to requests for information. The investigative work also benefited from the contributions of numerous civil society organizations and child protection experts across the EU.

The investigation does not end here: the Commission is continuing to examine other potential violations, including the interface design of Facebook and Instagram, which are accused of exploiting the vulnerabilities of young people by encouraging compulsive behavior and the so-called “rabbit hole” effects—algorithmic mechanisms that pull users into spirals of increasingly extreme content with no clear way out.

Photo Gerd Altmann da Pixabay.com