Needs to do more

EU says Meta needs to do more to keep under-13s off Instagram and Facebook

Brussels is under pressure to protect kids online as countries move forward with social media bans.

By Eliza Gkritsi

Meta is not doing enough to keep kids under 13 off its platforms and must change the design of Instagram and Facebook, the European Commission said Wednesday.

It’s the second warning to be issued to protect kids under the bloc’s digital rules after the Commission in February accused TikTok of harming teens with addictive design.

Brussels is under pressure from EU capitals to do more to protect kids on the internet as several countries move forward with social media bans.

Should the platforms be found guilty of breaching the EU’s Digital Services Act, they risk fines of up to 6 percent of their annual global revenue.

Meta can now respond to the findings and offer remedies to avoid a fine.

Meta spokesperson Toby Partlett said the company invested "in technologies to find and remove underage users and will have more to share next week about additional measures rolling out soon ... Understanding age is an industry-wide challenge, which requires an industry-wide solution."

The Commission said the measures Meta has put in place on Instagram and Facebook do not stop kids under 13 from accessing the platform. Citing “large bodies of evidence” that 10-12 percent of kids under 13 are on at least one of the two platforms, it said Meta needs to strengthen those measures, change its risk assessment and do more overall to cut risks to kids.

The Commission is working on its own app that platforms can use to verify the age of users, which it will on Wednesday tell EU countries to use. There are “no more excuses” for social media platforms, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this month.

Other parts of the Commission’s almost two-year investigation into whether Meta is breaching the Digital Services Act, including whether Meta is designed in an addictive way, are outstanding.