Meta Ordered by E.U. to Alter Addictive Design of Instagram and Facebook

Meta was told by European Union regulators on Friday to make major design changes to Instagram and Facebook to make the services less addictive, or risk facing hefty fines.Regulators in Brussels said that the “addictive design” of Meta’s two social media services violated European Union law and that it needed to remove features like “infinite scroll” and the automatic playing of videos.The technology giant should also introduce new “screen time breaks” and adjust its recommendation algorithm to make it “less engagement oriented,” authorities said.The commission’s findings are preliminary, and Meta now has time to respond to the allegations before a final judgment is issued.

A fine could run up to 6 percent of Meta’s global revenue, though regulators rarely issue penalties of that size.The ruling is an unusually direct effort to force specific product design changes.It is the latest sign of the aggressive approach taken by European regulators to confront social media companies over what is seen as intentionally subversive efforts to hook users, especially children.

In February, E.U.authorities accused TikTok of using similar design tricks to keep users coming back again and again.Ben Walters, a spokesman for Meta, said the company disagreed with the findings, which “don’t accurately take into account the significant steps we’ve taken to protect teens.” He said the company had introduced teen accounts that allow parents to block access to Instagram at night and cap daily screen time.The European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-nation bloc, is also weighing rules that could bar children from social media because of the apps’ addictive features — following Australia’s lead.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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