{"id":685032,"date":"2026-07-10T22:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T22:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685032\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T22:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T22:33:10","slug":"disable-autoplay-and-infinite-scroll-or-risk-massive-fines-eu-tells-meta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685032\/","title":{"rendered":"Disable autoplay and infinite scroll or risk massive fines, EU tells Meta"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The European Union is ramping up pressure on Meta to make big changes to Facebook and Instagram after the European Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/commission\/presscorner\/detail\/en\/ip_26_1579\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">preliminarily found<\/a> that features like autoplay, infinite scroll, and highly personalized content recommendations were addictive.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, the EC said its investigation indicated that \u201cMeta did not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese features fuel the user\u2019s urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into \u2018autopilot mode,\u2019 contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use,\u201d the commission said.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next few months, Meta will have an opportunity to dispute the claims, and it has already taken a defensive stance. Meta\u2019s spokesperson, Ben Walters, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/eu-tells-instagram-facebook-change-addictive-features-or-risk-fines-2026-07-10\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told Reuters<\/a> that Meta disagrees with the commission\u2019s preliminary findings, which supposedly \u201cdon\u2019t accurately take into account the significant steps we\u2019ve taken to protect teens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince this investigation began, we rolled out Teen Accounts that automatically protect teens and put parents in control\u2014allowing them to block access to Instagram at night \u200cand cap \u2060daily screen time at just 15 minutes,\u201d Walters said.<\/p>\n<p>However, the EC emphasized that Meta\u2019s current mitigation efforts, including time management tools activated by default for teens, \u201cfailed to effectively tackle the risks stemming from its addictive design.\u201d Additionally, parental controls were deemed \u201conly effective if parents and guardians possess adequate technical expertise\u201d and dedicated \u201ceffort and time to understand them effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis undermines the efficiency of such measures in addressing the inherent risks posed by Instagram and Facebook\u2019s addictive design,\u201d the EC said, particularly for minors.<\/p>\n<p>At this stage, the EC recommended that Meta consider \u201cdisabling key addictive features such as \u2018autoplay\u2019 and \u2018infinite scroll\u2019 by default, implementing effective \u2018screen time breaks,\u2019 and adapting its recommender system to make it less engagement-oriented.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union is ramping up pressure on Meta to make big changes to Facebook and Instagram after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-685032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}