The EU Just Told Meta: Kill Autoplay and Infinite Scroll or Pay Up

I'll be honest — I lose twenty minutes to a feed I never meant to open at least three times a week. So when the European Commission told Meta to switch off autoplay and infinite scroll or face fines, I actually looked up from my phone.

The Commission issued a preliminary finding that these two features breach the Digital Services Act, pointing straight at what they call "compulsive use" — design choices that aren't accidents, they're the product. TechCrunch reports the order covers Meta's flagship feeds, and the logic is simple: if the UI is engineered to keep you scrolling, the platform shares the blame for the time you didn't choose to spend.

This isn't a one-off. It's the first real shot in what looks like a durable fight over attention-design regulation — the idea that endless scroll and autoplaying video aren't neutral, they're nudges with teeth. The EU is building a precedent other regulators will crib from.

Whether you think that's overdue protection or overreach probably depends on how many nights you've lost to a feed. But the writing's on the wall: the features we treat as default are about to become a compliance question, not a design one.

Source: European Commission preliminary DSA finding via TechCrunch.