EU Charges Meta Over Under-13 Access to Facebook, Instagram

EU regulators on Wednesday issued preliminary charges against Meta Platforms, alleging that Facebook and Instagram fail to adequately prevent children under 13 from accessing the services, in violation of the bloc's Digital Services Act.

The European Commission, after an investigation launched in May 2024, found that Meta's age enforcement measures are largely ineffective. Children can easily create accounts by entering false birth dates, as the company lacks robust controls to verify self-declared ages. Regulators also criticized Meta's reporting tool for underage users as cumbersome, requiring up to seven steps to access and often lacking follow-up, allowing reported minors to continue using the platforms unchecked.

Commission data indicates that roughly 10 to 12 percent of children under 13 in Europe access Facebook or Instagram, contradicting the company's internal risk assessments. Officials said Meta disregarded scientific evidence on the vulnerabilities of young children to harmful content on such services and must overhaul its risk assessment methodology to better identify and mitigate these dangers.

"Our preliminary findings show that Instagram and Facebook are doing...