Report from Reuters
In Brief – A Dutch court has ruled that users of Facebook and Instagram are not “sufficiently able to make free and autonomous choices about the use of profiled recommendation systems,” and ordered Meta to change the platforms to allow users to simply set a chronological feed as their default and keep that preference until they change it themselves. The platforms currently allow users to change their feed from being algorithmically determined based on the user’s activity, to being chronological, but finding the option to make the change is difficult, and the change to a chronological feed cannot be permanently set. The court ruled that the current platform design violates the EU Digital Services Act’s prohibition on “dark patterns” and ordered the company to ensure that the settings are accessible on the homepage and Reels section and ensure the setting stays in place when the apps are shut down and restarted. The lawsuit that led to the decision was brought by the digital rights group Bits of Freedom, which argued that algorithmic feeds threaten democracy, particularly before elections. A spokesperson for Meta said the company will appeal the ruling and that the issue is a matter for the European Commission and regulators at the European levels and not for courts in individual countries, adding, “Proceedings like this threaten the digital single market and the harmonized regulatory regime that should underpin it.”
Context – Platforms with over 45 million active users in the EU are designated Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) under the DSA and face the strictest regulatory standards and enforcement by the Commission itself. The Commission is currently engaged in DSA investigations of X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, AliExpress and Temu, including regarding how they use algorithms, and most recently announced a new investigation of how Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Booking deal with frauds and scams. But as we’re seeing with AI regulation, regulatory overlaps continue to crop up, reinforcing concerns with inconsistent and restrictive EU regulation that were given voice in last year’s Draghi Report.