Portuguese digital-rights group D3 has taken Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to court, arguing their apps are built to keep people hooked.
D3 said in a Sept. 10 statement that these companies have “hegemonic informational power” that “is exploited through constant monitoring to shape our private behavior, without any limits.”
“These are the first class actions of this kind to be brought in the European Union,” it added.
The case was filed by law firm Andersen Tax & Legal Iberia with Lisbon’s Civil Court between April and May and disclosed after the judicial summer break.
The suit claimed these companies employ addictive design tactics, known as “dark patterns,” such as “infinite scrolling, automatic content playback, persistent notifications, personalized algorithmic recommendation systems and gamification mechanisms to foster addictive behaviors similar to those found in gambling.”
The digital-rights group added that these practices are designed with the “aim of maximizing, at any cost, the time spent on and interaction with these networks, drawing on knowledge of human psychological and neuro-cerebral processes.”
It said that this was “combined with an understanding of users’ preferences, intimacy, vulnerabilities, aspirations and emotional states, thanks to the computational power to micro-manage overwhelming volumes of information.”
“Platforms do not have to be hyper-addictive,” D3 president Ricardo Lafuente said.
“A healthy, productive and educational social media ecosystem is possible, but only if the rules are robust, properly enforced and directed at those who persist in ignoring them.”
D3 is the only Portuguese representative in European Digital Rights (EDRi), a collective of NGOs, experts, advocates, and academics which it claims is “working to defend and advance digital rights across the continent.”
EDRi receives donations from American and European foundations including Open Society, Ford, MacArthur, Adessium, Luminate and the Omidyar Group, Civitates, Stiftung Mercator, and the European AI & Society Fund.
A spokesperson for Alphabet’s Google, owner of YouTube, said providing people with “a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work” and pointed to tools such as “take a break” and bedtime reminders designed to help users manage viewing habits.
“We'll be assessing this case and responding in due course,” the spokesperson said.
The Epoch Times contacted Meta and TikTok for comment.
In February, the European Commission warned TikTok to overhaul what it calls the platform’s “addictive design” or face potentially large fines.
The commission said that TikTok did not “adequately assess” addictive features that could “harm the physical and mental wellbeing of its users, including minors and vulnerable adults.”
The preliminary findings were made under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which focuses on content moderation, user safety, and platform accountability and applies to companies that operate within the EU, regardless of their location. If found in violation of the DSA, companies can be fined up to 6 percent of their annual global turnover.
It said that it is “constantly ‘rewarding’ users” with new content in a design with features that fuel the urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain of users into “autopilot mode.”
In July, the European Union also preliminarily found Meta liable for the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook.
The commission’s two-year investigation found that features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and personalized recommendations encourage people to spend more time on Instagram and Facebook, increasing the risk of unhealthy and addictive use.
Reuters and Evgenia Filimianova contributed to this report.
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