EU Fines Temu €200 Million for Digital Services Act Breach
EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA
The European Commission has imposed a €200 million fine on Temu for violating the Digital Services Act. This significant enforcement action highlights the EU's commitment to holding major online platforms accountable for regulatory compliance. Alongside this penalty, the Commission continues to advance strategic initiatives, including new mobile satellite service authorizations and deepening trade ties with Mexico.
Today, the European Commission issued a fine of €200 million to Temu under the Digital Services Act.
- hiire
I truly hope something is done about this. I just came back from a nice short bath at the beach, where a family had their towels set a few meters away from mine. While I was laying there, relaxing, I saw two kids begging their dad to accompany them into the water, while their dad watched Reels and ignored them completely. Not even a response.
The kids just wanted to have a fun afternoon and play in the water, but the dad was just scrolling, didn't care at all about his surroundings, probably in the zombie state that these platforms let you in. The kids ended up running to the water on their own, the dad didn't react at all to the situation, zero response (to be fair, I'm not saying he should be alarmed or anything, just a "yeah, go ahead" would've been fine).
I may be exaggerating but I really think that these platforms are the tobacco of these decades, I used to be really addicted as a teen as well, now I'm 23 and left most of the platforms for good. Seeing people act like this, even in my group of friends, makes me feel quite weird about the whole situation.
- jeroenhd
Full title: "Commission preliminarily finds the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook in breach of the Digital Services Act"
Edit: for some reason, the URL has been changed. The page I tried to post is here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
- Honali
I think the strongest point is about the mismatch between the product and the mitigation. You can't optimize every surface for "one more minute" and then point to a dismissible time-limit popup as evidence that the user is in control
- tancop
this is the wrong approach. they should enforce a choice between addictive and "ethical" algorithms (or even better allow third party feeds), make them transparent with what kind of data they use to personalize and strictly ban any kind of political bias.
things like bluesky fyp should always stay legal and not in a gray area. even if someone comes up with a design thats more addictive than hard drugs people should have the option (but never be forced) to use it. if this is about kids then use california style on device age signals set by parents.
i just dont think addiction by itself is something we should be fighting. yes i believe in legalizing all drugs how could you tell.
- chk84us
Only tangentailly related, but, there is an option in Instagram to reset your algorithm. I highly recommend this if you find yourself doom-scrolling.
Not sure if it's also in FB on account of me not having an account there.
- TazeTSchnitzel
Forcing social media apps to have a less addictive design is a much better way to protect young people's brains than a social media age limit is (and frankly adults need help here too).
- deepsun
Last time EU fined Facebook for merging WhatsApp userbase merging with Facebook, that they explicitly forbade. Facebook just paid the fee and moved along.
What would be different here?
- timnetworks
I kind of wish they had developers that know how to get a video upload working from the website.
Alas, it all must have gotten scrapped for a llama workflow.
Website is worse than 15 years ago (code AND contents).