Meta faces billions in fines as Brussels finds Instagram and Facebook fail to keep minors out
The European Commission has concluded that Facebook and Instagram fail to identify, assess, and mitigate the risks of minors under 13 from accessing their social media services. The American tech company now risks receiving a multi-billion-euro fine.
The terms and conditions clearly state that the minimum age to access Facebook and Instagram is 13 years. However, the European Commission argues that Meta doesn’t enforce this restriction effectively.
According to the Commission, minors can easily enter a false date of birth, pretending to be much older. Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company appears to have no effective controls in place to check the correctness of the self-declared date of birth.
In addition, Meta’s tool for reporting minors under 13 on the platform is difficult to use and not effective. Allegedly, it takes up to seven clicks to access the reporting form. On top of that, the form isn’t automatically pre-filled with the user’s information. There’s hardly any follow-up, and the reported minor can continue to use the social media platform without any checks.
“This builds on an incomplete and arbitrary risk assessment, which inadequately identifies the risk of minors under 13 accessing Instagram and Facebook and being exposed to age-inappropriate experiences,” the European Commission warns.
The executive branch of the EU recommends that Facebook and Instagram revise their risk assessment methodologies and strengthen measures to prevent, detect, and remove minors under 13 from their services.
If the Commission's views are ultimately confirmed, Meta risks a fine of up to 6% of its worldwide annual turnover, which could amount to billions of euros.
Meta says it has measures in place to detect and remove accounts of children under 13 and that it will announce additional measures next week.
“Understanding age is an industry-wide challenge, which requires an industry-wide solution, and we will continue to engage constructively with the European Commission on this important issue,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.
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