The findings form part of a two-year investigation into Meta’s compliance with the Digital Services Act. The Commission has provisionally concluded that the company failed to carry out legally required risk assessments into features such as autoplay, infinite scrolling and personalised recommendation systems, which it says may contribute to addictive behaviour among children.

The Commission also found on a preliminary basis in April that Meta’s age assurance measures were insufficient to prevent children under 13 from accessing its platforms.

Noeline Blackwell, the Children’s Rights Alliance’s online safety coordinator, said the findings strengthened calls for tougher regulation of online platforms.

She said: “It is bad enough that the access of young children to the platform is found to be below standard, putting children at risk. But there is something deeply disturbing about these EU Commission findings that Meta did not carry out the basic safety checks required by law.”

The alliance also welcomed the Commission’s proposal to disable certain addictive features and called for a wider “safety-by-design” approach requiring technology companies to address harms arising from the design of their platforms.

The Commission’s findings are provisional and Meta has the opportunity to respond before a final decision is reached.