After the agreement reached in the United States, aimed at reducing the impact of Instagram or Facebook on teenagers, Meta must “also protect our children,” said on Thursday a spokesperson for the European Union, where the American group is also under investigation.
“We expect proper management of time spent in front of screens, appropriate parental controls on these platforms (…) It is now for the company to propose these commitments within the European Union in order to protect our children here as well,” said to the press Thomas Regnier, one of the spokespersons for the European Commission.
Meta agreed on Wednesday to pay up to 17 billion dollars and to curb Instagram and Facebook for teenagers in about fifty states and U.S. territories, by entering into an agreement with their attorneys general.
In the EU, the American tech giant is also the subject of European Commission investigations for similar reasons.
On July 10, the European executive had ordered Meta to modify the interfaces of Facebook and Instagram deemed far too “addictive”, under the threat of a very heavy fine.
Brussels accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s group of not properly assessing and limiting the risks that users of the two platforms develop addictions, particularly minors and vulnerable adults, due to features designed to keep their attention for as long as possible.
“The ball is in Meta’s court” and the group “knows what we expect from them,” Mr. Regnier recalled on Thursday. “We have had exchanges with Meta since this agreement was announced across the Atlantic,” he specified.
“It is a continuous dialogue we are conducting to offer our children, here in the European Union, protection at least as good,” reiterated this spokesperson.
Brussels is not satisfied with the parental controls built into Facebook and Instagram, which would be too complex to manage, nor with the settings to limit teenagers’ screen time.
Meta had challenged Brussels’ preliminary conclusions, while pledging to work with the Commission to “offer a safe and positive online environment.”
The European Commission issued these preliminary injunctions as part of an investigation launched in May 2024 into Mark Zuckerberg’s group, suspected of not doing enough to protect minors online.
This procedure is conducted under the European regulation on digital services (the DSA), under which Brussels earlier this year sent a similar request to TikTok.
