The European Commission on July 10, 2026 preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act over the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook, targeting infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and the platforms' recommender systems as features that push users, particularly minors, into compulsive use.

The finding, published in Brussels and carried under reference IP/26/1579, does not itself impose a penalty. It represents the Commission's preliminary view following an investigation that has run since May 16, 2024, and Meta now enters a defence phase before any final decision, and any fine, can follow.

Regulators concluded that Meta failed to properly assess how design choices on both apps affect the physical and mental wellbeing of users. According to the Commission, the company did not adequately weigh how highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll function together to keep people scrolling. These mechanisms, the Commission argues, shift a user's brain into what it calls "autopilot mode," and that state, sustained repeatedly, contributes to unhealthy habits and compulsive use.

What the investigation examined

The Commission's press release lays out two distinct strands of concern, and each targets a different part of how the apps are built.

The first strand is risk assessment. Under the Digital Services Act, very large online platforms must identify and evaluate the systemic risks their services pose, and Brussels says Meta did not do this properly for addictive design. The Commission's finding states plainly that Meta did not consider certain design features of Instagram and Facebook, "such as highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll, which constantly show users new content." Those features, the Commission adds, fuel the user's urge to keep scrolling.

A second, related failure concerns minors specifically. Investigators found that Meta disregarded available information about how much time minors spend on the two apps at night, and how the optimisation of formats such as reels and stories could drive excessive or compulsive use among younger users. Night-time usage patterns among minors were treated by the Commission as a piece of evidence Meta had access to but did not sufficiently act on.

The second strand concerns risk mitigation, meaning the tools Meta already has in place and whether they actually work. Here the Commission's language is unusually direct. Time management tools on both platforms, including those switched on by default for teenagers, "can be easily dismissed" and do not lead to any meaningful reduction in how much the services get used, according to the findings.

Parental controls fare little better in the Commission's assessment. Investigators concluded that these tools are only effective if a parent or guardian already has adequate technical expertise, and is willing to spend the time and effort required to understand how they function. Where that expertise or time is absent, the Commission found, the controls do little to address the underlying risks posed by the design of the two apps. Meta's separate awareness-raising measures, including tips and links to mental health resources housed on a distinct "safety centre" page, were likewise found insufficient to mitigate addictive design risk on either platform.

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The remedies Brussels wants to see

Although the investigation remains open, the Commission has already sketched the shape of what compliance would require. It expects Meta to disable autoplay and infinite scroll by default on both Instagram and Facebook, introduce screen-time breaks that function in practice rather than as easily dismissed prompts, and rework its recommender system so that it optimises for something other than pure engagement.

None of this is guaranteed to happen. Whether Meta implements these specific changes will depend on how the rest of the DSA procedure plays out, and the Commission has been careful to frame its findings as preliminary rather than conclusive. As the press release states, "these preliminary findings do not prejudge the final outcome of the investigation."

Meta's next move, procedurally, is to exercise its right of defence. The company can examine the Commission's investigation files and respond in writing to the preliminary findings, a standard step under DSA enforcement architecture. In parallel, the European Board for Digital Services will be consulted before matters progress further.

Should the Commission's preliminary view survive that process and be confirmed, it can issue a formal non-compliance decision. Such a decision, the press release notes, may trigger a fine "proportionate to the nature, gravity, recurrence and duration of the infringement," with a statutory ceiling set at 6% of Meta's total worldwide annual turnover. Given that Meta's global revenue runs into the tens of billions of dollars annually, the theoretical maximum would dwarf prior DSA penalties, though the Commission has consistently set actual fines well below the statutory cap in comparable cases.

The Digital Services Act frames this ceiling as the outer limit of what regulators can impose, not a default outcome. The Commission's own enforcement record under the DSA to date, including a €120 million penalty against X in December 2025 and a €200 million penalty against Temu in May 2026, has landed well beneath 6% of those companies' respective annual turnovers, suggesting the Commission calibrates fines to the specific conduct at issue rather than reaching automatically for the statutory maximum.

How this fits Meta's broader DSA history

The July 10 finding is not an isolated action. It sits inside proceedings the Commission opened against Meta on May 16, 2024, covering a wider set of concerns about how Instagram and Facebook are designed and operated across the European Union.

That broader investigation has already produced one other set of preliminary findings this year. On April 29, 2026, the Commission adopted preliminary conclusions regarding the age assurance measures Meta has in place for users below 13 years old, a separate strand of the same case examining whether Meta's systems meaningfully enforce its own stated age threshold. Brussels also continues a distinct investigation into so-called "rabbit hole" effects tied to how Facebook's and Instagram's recommender systems may exploit the vulnerabilities and inexperience of minors specifically, a strand that remains open and separate from the July 10 addictive design findings.

Taken together, the pattern places addictive design, age assurance, and recommender-driven rabbit holes as three parallel tracks inside a single overarching DSA case against Meta, each capable of producing its own preliminary findings, its own defence period, and potentially its own contribution to an eventual fine calculation.

A parallel case against TikTok

Meta is not the only major platform facing this specific line of enforcement. The Commission issued near-identical preliminary findings against TikTok in February 2026, covering the same cluster of features: infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and highly personalised recommender systems. That case, opened in February 2024, marked what the Commission itself described as the first time Brussels had directly targeted platform architecture elements for their effects on user wellbeing, rather than for content moderation failures or transparency shortfalls. ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, faces the same 6% global turnover exposure Meta now faces should its own case reach a confirmed non-compliance decision.

The structural similarity between the Meta and TikTok cases is notable. Both investigations single out the same quartet of design features. Both frame the underlying harm in terms of compulsive use and effects on physical and mental wellbeing rather than any specific piece of illegal content. And both remain, as of this reporting, at the preliminary findings stage, with neither company having yet faced a confirmed non-compliance decision on addictive design specifically.

Why this matters for the advertising and marketing sector

For an industry that depends on user attention as its raw material, a regulatory finding aimed squarely at the mechanics of that attention carries direct commercial weight, not merely legal or reputational risk.

Advertisers who buy inventory on Instagram and Facebook do so, in large part, because the platforms' recommender systems are effective at maximising time spent and content consumed. Should Meta be compelled to make its recommender system, in the Commission's words, "less engagement-oriented," the downstream effect on reach, frequency, and overall inventory volume within the EU and EEA is a real commercial variable for media planners to track, even before any fine is levied.

Screen-time breaks and default-off autoplay, if ultimately implemented as the Commission envisions, would also alter the raw amount of scrollable inventory available to advertisers operating in the bloc. A platform optimised for shorter, less continuous sessions produces a different supply curve than one optimised for uninterrupted engagement, and buyers accustomed to European reach figures calculated under the current design would need to recalibrate expectations if defaults change.

The case additionally continues a pattern the industry has seen play out repeatedly since the DSA became fully operational on February 17, 2024. Regulators have moved from transparency and content moderation complaints, the subject of an October 2025 preliminary finding against both TikTok and Meta, toward direct scrutiny of the design mechanics that keep users on a platform in the first place. That shift matters for any brand safety or platform strategy planning that assumes today's engagement metrics will remain a stable baseline. A platform under formal pressure to reduce engagement-optimisation is, by definition, one whose historical performance data may not predict future inventory behaviour with the same confidence.

There is also a compliance dimension worth flagging for marketers operating adjacent products, such as apps or services with their own recommender systems and minor-facing features. The Commission's reasoning in this case, that inadequate risk assessment plus ineffective mitigation together constitute a breach, offers a template other platforms may find applied to them in turn, and the parallel TikTok case suggests the Commission intends this line of enforcement to extend across the sector rather than target Meta uniquely.

The quote on record

Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, provided the sole named quote attached to the announcement. "Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms," Virkkunen said. "The Digital Services Act provides a clear framework to hold platforms accountable for the addictive design and effects of their services. We are fully committed to enforcing our legislation in Europe."

The statement was dated July 10, 2026, and attributed directly to Virkkunen in her Commission role.

Timeline

  • February 17, 2024 - The Digital Services Act becomes fully operational for all platforms operating in the EU.
  • May 16, 2024 - The European Commission opens formal proceedings against Meta under the Digital Services Act, covering Instagram and Facebook.
  • October 24, 2025 - The Commission preliminarily finds Meta and TikTok in breach of separate DSA transparency obligations, covering researcher data access and content moderation reporting.
  • February 6, 2026 - The Commission issues preliminary findings against TikTok for addictive design features nearly identical to those raised against Meta.
  • April 29, 2026 - The Commission adopts preliminary findings on the age assurance measures Meta has in place for users below 13 years old, part of the same broader Meta proceeding.
  • July 10, 2026 - The Commission announces preliminary findings that Meta's addictive design of Instagram and Facebook breaches the Digital Services Act.

Summary

Who: The European Commission and Meta Platforms, the operator of Instagram and Facebook, are the parties involved. Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, issued the Commission's public statement.

What: The Commission preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act over the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook, citing infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and personalised recommender systems, along with insufficiently effective mitigation tools such as time management settings and parental controls.

When: The finding was announced July 10, 2026. It stems from formal proceedings the Commission opened on May 16, 2024, and follows an earlier related preliminary finding on age assurance for under-13 users adopted April 29, 2026.

Where: The finding applies across the European Union, where the Digital Services Act governs very large online platforms including Instagram and Facebook.

Why: The Commission concluded that Meta did not adequately assess how its design choices affect the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults, and that existing mitigation measures fail to meaningfully reduce compulsive use. Meta now has the opportunity to respond before any final non-compliance decision or fine, capped by law at 6% of global annual turnover, could follow.