To protect children from “behavioural addiction” and “rabbit-hole effects,” the European Commission announced on Thursday its decision to examine Meta platforms’ (Instagram and Facebook’s) age verifications and risks of privacy. The new probe follows only weeks after a previous probe in April regarding election disinformation.
Under the latest scrutiny will be the algorithms of the social media websites, age-verification mechanisms and user saturation through an overflow of similar content, known as the “rabbit-hole effect.” The investigation began under the recent Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to combat harmful online content.
Its necessity was further underscored based on a risk assessment report from Meta in September 2023, wherein the EU commissioner earlier mentioned that he was “not convinced [that Meta] 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.”
“We want young people to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online and have spent a decade developing more than 50 tools and policies designed to protect them,” said a Meta spokesperson, assuring of technological measures constructed over a decade to ensure child safety online.
However, should the probe confirm the suspicions of the Commission, the tech giant would be held liable for the breach of Articles 28 and 34 of the DSA. Meta could face a penalty of up to 6% of their annual revenues world over. Further interim measures to enforce security could also be implemented under the law.
Apart from safety and privacy concerns, the EU Commission would also take cognisance of possible breaches of the DSA clauses arising from Meta’s likelihood to discontinue CrowdTangle, a tool letting people follow election-related content on its platforms. It must be noted that repeated DSA violations endanger a company towards a complete ban in the EU market.
The investigation relating to child safety is only one among the many probes that the tech giant has been subjected to; other examples include the American probe over child abuse and trafficking and the already-mentioned ongoing investigation from April by the EU again over election disinformation.
The probe also comes in background to the platforms’ designations under the DSA as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) in April 2023 due to their above 45 million monthly active users in the EU alone. Following its formal opening, the Commission would proceed towards collecting proof, demand information from Meta, and conduct inspections and interviews.
Nevertheless, Meta, by emphasising the pervasiveness of the problem of online predation, has assured compliance and the sharing of details with the EU Commission as per DSA requirements to further strengthen privacy and security for children.
