EU Plans Digital Fairness Act to Ban Addictive Design on TikTok and Instagram
Tags Consumer · Enterprise
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced at the AI and Children Summit in Copenhagen that the EU will introduce the Digital Fairness Act later in 2026 to ban addictive design features including endless scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X. The Commission is also exploring an EU-wide minimum age for social media access, with a legal proposal possible this summer. Meta was already found in April 2026 to have breached the Digital Services Act for failing to keep under-13s off its platforms. The DFA will strengthen and expand the existing DSA, with infringement fines up to 10% of annual turnover.
Technical significance
The DFA represents the most aggressive regulatory intervention against platform design patterns to date. If enacted, it would require fundamental changes to engagement-driving features that underpin the business models of major social media platforms. The 48-hour takedown mandate for nonconsensual content under the parallel Take It Down Act enforcement adds compliance urgency. For tech companies, this signals that the EU's regulatory approach is expanding from data privacy (GDPR) and competition (DMA) to direct intervention in UX design.