The European Commission ruled on Wednesday that Meta violated the EU Digital Services Act. Preliminary investigation showed that the platform failed to effectively prevent children under 13 years old from registering and using its social products. Since this year, Meta has continued to be severely scrutinized by regulatory agencies in terms of child safety control on the platform.
As regulation continues to tighten on the tech giant's child safety controls, the European Commission has determined that Meta violated EU law by failing to prevent minors under 13 from accessing its platform.
The European Commission announced its preliminary investigation conclusion on Wednesday: Instagram and Facebook have a legal minimum age of 13, but Meta did not fully implement the age access rules and is suspected of violating the EU Digital Services Act.
The EU pointed out that minors can freely fill in false dates of birth when registering accounts, and the platform does not have any verification mechanism to check.
In addition, the tool for reporting underage accounts is cumbersome, and users need to click up to seven times to enter the reporting form; even if someone reports underage accounts, the platform often lacks complete follow-up and removal control measures.
The European Commission stated in the announcement: "The Commission believes that Instagram and Facebook must rectify their risk assessment mechanisms and re-evaluate the various risks to minors in the two products in the EU, as well as the specific manifestations of the risks."
A Meta spokesperson responded to CNBC: "We do not agree with the preliminary investigation conclusion. We clearly stipulate that Instagram and Facebook are for use by people 13 years of age and above, and have deployed relevant mechanisms to identify and clean up underage accounts.
We continue to invest in technology research and development to detect and remove accounts of underage users, and will announce more supporting control measures that will be implemented next week. Age identification is a common problem in the entire industry and needs to be solved collaboratively by the entire industry. We will also maintain constructive communication with the European Commission on this important issue. "
Meta can now review the European Commission's preliminary findings and submit written arguments.
If the final investigation upholds the preliminary ruling, the EU could impose a huge fine on Meta of up to 6% of total global annual revenue.
Before the EU released its preliminary investigation results, the U.S. court made two major rulings in March:
One ruling found that the design of some products on the Meta platform promoted addiction and harmed the mental health of teenagers; another ruling found that the company misled users about the safety of children on the platform.