{"id":463946,"date":"2026-09-03T17:28:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/03\/minori-online-ue-meta-e-tiktok-creano-dipendenza-nei-nostri-bambini-non-lo-tollereremo\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T16:22:14","slug":"children-online-eu-meta-and-tiktok-are-making-our-children-addicted-we-will-not-tolerate-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/03\/children-online-eu-meta-and-tiktok-are-making-our-children-addicted-we-will-not-tolerate-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Children online, EU: \u201cMeta and TikTok are making our children addicted; we will not tolerate this\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Meta and TikTok \u201coffer highly harmful services\u201d that \u201care addictive for our children and the public.\u201d Not only that, but \u201cthey continue to make money at the expense of our citizens\u2019 wellbeing, and we will not tolerate this.\u201d This was stated<\/a> today (3 September) by the European Commission spokesperson, Thomas Reigner<\/strong>, during the daily press briefing. <\/p>\n

Yesterday, the French MEP for Renew St\u00e9phanie Yon-Courtin <\/strong> and 51 other MEPs sent a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>, regarding the recent agreement<\/a> between Meta and 48 US states in the case in which the Californian group was accused of deliberately designing its social media platforms to create addiction in adolescents<\/a>. According to reports from several news agencies<\/a>, the signatories believe that US courts have been quicker to secure greater safeguards than the EU<\/strong>. <\/strong>Therefore,<\/span> the Commission must examine \u201cwithout further delay\u201d the 2024 investigation\u2014the formal proceedings launched on 16 May 2024 to investigate Meta\u2019s compliance with the Digital Services Act<\/a>, the European legislation designed to make the online space safer, more transparent, and more accountable. In light of this, they are reported to have asked the head of the European Commission to act more swiftly and assertively, for example by issuing a finding of non-compliance or imposing sanctions. <\/p>\n

The spokesperson confirmed that the government had received the letter<\/strong> and stated that although Meta \u201coffers certain safety measures for children in the United States\u201d and \u201cTikTok does the same in China,\u201d they remain two companies that \u201cprovide highly harmful services\u201d when it comes to children\u2019s addiction. This is the reason that prompted the Berlaymont Building to \u201cintroduce the DSA,\u201d which is now driving it to press ahead with investigations into the platforms\u2019 compliance with its regulations. \u201cOf course, one might argue that our investigations are slow,\u201d added the spokesperson, but he noted that the Commission cannot be accused of slowness when the case overseas \u201chas lasted three years\u201d and \u201cwill take effect in ten.\u201d<\/strong> As the European Union, \u201cwe have reached the same preliminary conclusions in just two years, under the DSA,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the Commission will not accept \u201can agreement containing just one or two safety measures\u201d because that does not reflect the reason why \u201cthe DSA was created.\u201d The spokesperson clarified that the law \u201caims to tackle, and is already tackling, the addictive design features of these platforms,\u201d such as infinite scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications\u2014referring to the conclusions reached by the Commission last July when it determined that Meta\u2019s design created Instagram and Facebook addiction<\/a> and breached the DSA. \u201cMeta and TikTok still have the opportunity to make commitments to protect our citizens<\/strong>,\u201d he went on to clarify. Consequently, Brussels cannot be accused of inaction after \u201cmaking the protection of children online one of its top priorities.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cFive hours a day spent on social media by our children\u2014that\u2019s 20 years of their lives\u2014is an awful lot<\/strong>,\u201d Reigner pointed out, describing it as a \u201csituation that must change.\u201d It was also mentioned that the President has already announced that \u201cif platforms do not build safety features into their systems from the design stage, we will have to do more.\u201d For this reason, the European Commission is working \u201con a proposal for a social media ban, which will be presented in the future.\u201d What is certain is that \u201cwe have nothing satisfactory on the table that would allow us to close the case,\u201d he concluded. <\/p>\n

Launched in 2024, formal proceedings to investigate Meta\u2019s compliance with the DSA<\/a> are based on an in-depth investigation that includes an analysis of the company\u2019s risk assessment reports, data, internal documents and the responses to numerous requests for information provided by Meta itself. The alleged breaches relate to Meta\u2019s policies and practices concerning misleading advertising and political content on its services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A letter from 52 MEPs to the Commission urging it to ensure greater safeguards in this area. An EU spokesperson said: \u201cWe are already tackling the features that lead to addiction\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":463922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25710],"tags":[26261,25871,25815,26940,26087,25755,27368,34798,26783,31235,26326],"class_list":["post-463946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-net-tech-en","tag-law-on-digital-services-en","tag-dsa-en","tag-news-parliament-en","tag-meta-en","tag-minori-online","tag-renew-en","tag-tik-tok-en","tag-states-united-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463947,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463946\/revisions\/463947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}