The European Commission issued preliminary findings on Friday accusing Meta of building Facebook and Instagram to be addictive, giving the company a formal opportunity to respond before Brussels reaches a final decision that could trigger fines of up to 6% of its global annual revenue. Based on Meta’s 2025 turnover of roughly $201 billion, that ceiling sits at around $12 billion.

The Commission’s case centres on architecture, not content. The investigation, opened in May 2024, found that features such as autoplay, infinite scroll, and highly personalised recommendation feeds “fuel the user’s urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into ‘autopilot mode,’ contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use.”

What Brussels wants changed

The Commission told Meta to disable autoplay and infinite scroll in default settings, to implement effective screen-time breaks, and to retune its recommendation algorithm away from pure engagement maximisation. Time management tools already built into the apps, it said, are too easy to dismiss and “do not lead to a meaningful reduction and control of the usage of the service.”

Meta disagreed, with spokesperson Ben Walters saying the findings “don’t accurately take into account the significant steps we’ve taken to protect teens.” He pointed to Teen Accounts, launched on Instagram in 2024, which “automatically protect teens and put parents in control.”

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A Commission official responded that Teen Accounts can be easily dismissed and do not provide enough friction to change habitual use. Parental controls also require “adequate technical expertise and time and effort,” the findings said, placing too much burden on families.

A pattern of findings

Friday’s action is the third set of preliminary findings the Commission has issued against Meta under the DSA. Earlier charges accused the company of failing to keep under-13s off its platforms and of providing insufficient transparency to outside researchers.

The addictive design theory of liability is not new to Brussels. The Commission moved against TikTok’s reward-based engagement features in 2024 and issued similar preliminary findings against TikTok’s overall addictive design in February, making Meta the second major platform to receive this specific charge.

The minimum age question arrives on Monday

The timing is deliberate: a panel of experts appointed by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is due to deliver its recommendations on Monday on whether the EU should set a minimum social media age. Von der Leyen has already signalled support for restrictions, with a legislative proposal potentially coming in the autumn.

EU child safety legislation has faced repeated delays over conflicts between privacy law and content scanning proposals, but the political momentum behind age restrictions has grown across the bloc. Twenty-three of the 27 EU member states are now considering or have already enacted legislation to restrict children’s social media access.

Regulatory pressure stacks up

The addictive design findings arrive alongside a separate Commission ruling that Meta’s “pay or consent” advertising model breaches the Digital Markets Act. Meta is contesting both sets of findings, and no final decision or fine has yet been issued in either case.

The preliminary findings give Meta the right to examine the evidence gathered and submit an official defence. If the Commission confirms a breach, it has the power to impose structural remedies and, if those are ignored, periodic penalty payments on top of the base fine.