Meta's child safety problem just got more expensive. The European Commission said Wednesday that Instagram and Facebook are not doing enough to keep underage users off the platforms, with potential fines among the biggest the EU can hand out.
The preliminary finding lands on top of two losing US court rulings in March, leaving Meta fighting child safety battles on two continents at once.
Meta's age check at signup is basically the honor system, and minors can type any birth date they want with nothing in place to verify it. The Commission called that out by name in its preliminary report.
The Commission also flagged Meta's reporting tool, with filing a report on an underage account taking up to seven clicks. Even after the report is filed, the Commission found that follow-up was often missing or inadequate.
The result, per the Commission, is a minimum age rule that exists on paper but not in practice, and that's the framing that opens Meta up to one of the largest fine categories in the Digital Services Act.
If the final investigation matches the preliminary one, the fine could reach 6% of Meta's total worldwide annual turnover, one of the largest categories of penalty available under the Digital Services Act.
Meta pushed back. "We disagree with these preliminary findings," a Meta spokesperson said. "We're clear that Instagram and Facebook are intended for people aged 13 and older and we have measures in place to detect and remove accounts from anyone under that age."
The company said it will share more next week about new measures rolling out, and noted that "understanding age is an industry-wide challenge."
Meta now has the chance to review the preliminary findings and respond in writing before the EU finalizes its decision.
This isn't Meta's only child safety problem this year. Two US court rulings in March went against the company, with one finding that aspects of its platform design contributed to teen addiction and mental health harms and the other concluding Meta had misled users about children's safety.
Meta's stock fell almost 8% in the days after those rulings.
The pressure isn't only on Meta. Australia just became the first country to ban under-16s from social media, and the UK, Spain and France are considering similar laws.
UK regulators have called on YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook to upgrade age checks, suggesting facial age estimation, digital ID, or one-time photo matching to replace the easily-faked birthday box.
The UK's Information Commissioner's Office has been blunt in its language, telling platforms that the status quo isn't working and asking them to act now rather than waiting for regulators to force changes.
Whether the EU's final finding lines up with the preliminary one, and how much of the 6% fine ceiling the Commission actually applies if it does. Whether other platforms preempt regulators by upgrading their own age checks.
The age verification tools the industry uses next will probably look very different from a self-reported birthday box.