The EU’s executive body, the European Commission, announced that it is looking into the possibility that Meta’s Facebook and Instagram accounts could have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA).
A significant inquiry into potential violations of the European Union’s tough online content rule about threats to children’s safety was launched against Facebook parent firm Meta on Thursday.
In a statement, the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, stated that it is looking into the possibility that the social media behemoth’s Facebook and Instagram pages “may stimulate behavioural addictions in children, as well as create so-called ‘rabbit-hole effects.'”
These words refer to how users, particularly minors, might become enmeshed in never-ending content loops that may result in detrimental behaviour or detrimental effects on their mental health.
Once more, the EU is doubting the efficiency of Meta’s age verification features because they believe the platform could be too simple to use around.
The inquiry will also evaluate how well Meta’s recommendation and content control tools protect kids from objectionable material.
“Today we open formal proceedings against Meta,” the EU commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, said in a statement. “We are not convinced that it has done enough to comply with the DSA obligations to mitigate the risks of negative effects to the physical and mental health of young Europeans on its platforms Facebook and Instagram.”
The DSA is a historic law that was enacted by the bloc last summer and holds both big and small digital enterprises accountable for online damages like child abuse, commerce fraud, and disinformation.
Platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram and other social media pages are required by the DSA to safeguard children’s safety and privacy.
We earlier reported that Tech giant, Apple, has been penalised with more than $1.84B (£1.5bn) by the European Commission for abusing its market dominance in the distribution of music streaming apps to owners of iPhones and iPads (referred to as “iOS users”) via the App Store.
