If you've ever wondered how many kids under 13 are quietly scrolling through Instagram right now, European regulators are asking the same question - and they're not happy with what they're finding.
The European Union formally accused Meta this week of failing to prevent underage users from accessing Facebook and Instagram, according to reporting by Fast Company. The EU's executive branch says Meta lacks effective systems to stop children younger than 13 from signing up in the first place, and that the company isn't doing nearly enough to identify and remove those accounts once they exist.
Why this matters beyond EU borders
This isn't just a European story. The EU's Digital Services Act is one of the toughest pieces of tech regulation anywhere in the world, and when Brussels pushes back on a company this size, the ripple effects tend to go global. Meta technically sets its own minimum age at 13 for both platforms - meaning the company's own rules are already being broken, according to regulators.
The accusation puts Meta in a tight spot. The company has faced growing scrutiny over children's safety on its platforms for years, and this latest move from the EU signals that vague commitments to do better aren't going to cut it anymore. Regulators want concrete systems, and they want results.
The bigger picture on kids and social media
There's a reason this conversation keeps coming back. Parents, researchers, and policymakers across multiple countries have raised serious concerns about the impact of social media on younger users - from exposure to harmful content to the psychological effects of algorithmic feeds designed to maximise engagement. The fact that platforms struggle to even verify basic age information makes all of those downstream concerns significantly harder to address.
For platforms like Instagram and Facebook, age verification is genuinely tricky - but that difficulty doesn't absolve companies of responsibility. If anything, regulators seem to be making clear that "it's complicated" is no longer an acceptable answer.
Meta has not yet publicly responded to the EU's findings in detail. But with potential penalties under the Digital Services Act potentially running into billions of euros, this is one accusation the company can't afford to ignore.
