EU has charged Meta with failing to block people under 13 from Facebook and Instagram in line with the Digital Services Act
EU officials fined Meta for violating the Digital Services Act by failing to prevent children under 13 from using Facebook and Instagram.
The company that owns Facebook and Instagram, Meta Platforms, has been officially charged by the European Commission for supposedly not doing enough to keep kids under 13 from using its platforms, which is against the EU’s important Digital Services Act (DSA).
The charges were made public on Wednesday after the Commission looked into whether the social media giant had obeyed the rules that require Big Tech companies to remove harmful and illegal material from the internet for two years.
The EU determined that Meta has failed to adequately enforce its own age restrictions on Facebook and Instagram. Regulators said the company’s methods for finding and removing users who are too young are still inadequate, even though it is clear that kids under 13 can’t use the platforms.
The European Commission says that between 10 and 12 percent of children under 13 use Facebook and Instagram. This raises concerns about their access to harmful material and the lack of adequate safety measures, particularly given that these platforms have been criticized for not effectively enforcing age restrictions to protect young users.
Henna Virkkunen, the head of technology policy for the EU, said, “Our preliminary findings show that Instagram and Facebook are doing very little to prevent children under this age from accessing their services.”
“Terms and conditions should not be just written statements,” she said. “They should be the basis for real action to protect users, including children.”
The Commission told Meta that it needs to change how it evaluates risks and make its steps to stop, find, and remove users underage from its platforms much stronger, including implementing more robust age verification processes and increasing monitoring of user activity.
