According to the EU Commission, Zuckerberg’s company would violate the Digital Services Act. Billion-dollar fines are possible. Meta disagrees, but promises adjustments.
Tensions between the European Union and the American giants remain high tech. A year ago, the European Commission they had sanctioned Meta and Apple for violations of the Digital Markets Act with multimillion-dollar fines.
Yesterday, for the company of Mark Zuckerbergthe second act of the struggle between tech giants and European regulators. In fact, with a press release published by the Commission, another chapter in the long saga of opposing sides seems to have begun the EU And Meta Platformsthe company, owner of Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp among others.
“The European Commission has preliminarily found that Meta’s Instagram and Facebook are in breach of the Digital Services Regulation (DSA) for failing to adequately identify, assess and mitigate the risks associated with access to their services by children under 13″.
Thus begins the short statement with which the Commission announces its preliminary conclusions regarding the American company’s compliance with the regulations contained in the Digital Services Act.
The investigations, formally launched in May 2024, point the finger at registration process. A minor can in fact declare a false date of birth and exceed the threshold established by the terms of service without any effective control.
Brussels highlights how reporting tools are lackingwith the process for reporting the presence of a minor being complex and not very intuitive, requiring up to seven steps before accessing the form, which often does not produce adequate interventions.
According to data collected at European level, between 10 and 12% of children under 13 access Instagram and Facebookan estimate significantly higher than that provided by the company itself.
Meta, for his part, rejected the preliminary conclusionsannouncing new detection tools being implemented.
What the company risks
If the American company does not comply, it would be hit with a final non-compliance decision, with sanctions that could come up to 6% of global annual turnover.
Considering that Meta recorded revenues of approximately 190 billion of euros in 2025, the fine could theoretically reach 11 billion euros.
Brussels has already made it known what it expects from Meta, namely one comprehensive overhaul of risk assessment methodology, more robust age verification tools and higher standards of privacy and security for minorsin line with the 2025 DSA guidelines.
The American government will intervene
The Meta affair, however, is not an isolated case, but is part of a picture of growing tensions between Washington and Brussels in terms of digital regulation.
Last year the American President Donald Trump had expressly stated that he would “strongly oppose countries attacking our amazing American technology companies”, defining the DSA and the DMA regulations designed “to harm U.S. technology.”
The case of X’s Elon Musk it is emblematic; in December 2025 the Commission fined the platform 120 million euros for violating the DSAthe first sanction in history applied to the regulation.
The American response saw Washington impose travel restrictions on five European officials, including former commissioner Thierry Bretonaccused of having favored “extraterritorial censorship”.
Restrictions for minors are increasing
Going beyond the community institutions, in any case, More and more European national governments are joining the crusade launched against the use of social networks by children. Among them are France, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Portugal and Spain.
The French Parliament, for example, has started the process for a bill that prohibits access to the platforms to children under 15 years of ageafter six months of hearings and 31,000 testimonies collected by a commission of inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on young people.
At a European level, the technological response is already in the pipeline: Italy, France, Spain, Greece and Denmark will take part in the pilot phase of a new age verification app developed by the Commissionwhich is expected to launch by the end of 2026.
The system should allow, at least in public declarations made by European officials, to certify possession of the required minimum age without revealing other personal data, thanks to a anonymous certification mechanism. In short, the game has just begun.
