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VLOP Social

Facebook

Subject to two open formal proceedings — on election integrity and researcher data access, and on the protection of minors.

Tier
VLOP — very large online platform
Provider
Meta Platforms Ireland Limited
Sector
Social
Designated
25 April 2023
Obligations from
25 August 2023
EU users at designation
259 million
Formal proceedings
2
Court challenges
T-55/24 and T-58/24

Designated 25 April 2023 on 259 million average monthly active recipients in the Union.

The Commission opened proceedings on 30 April 2024 covering deceptive political advertising, the deprecation of CrowdTangle, notice-and-action mechanisms and researcher data access; and a second set on 16 May 2024 on addictive design, age assurance and preventing access by under-13s.

In the transparency strand the Commission has issued preliminary findings that Meta did not provide users with DSA-compliant mechanisms to report illegal content or to challenge content moderation decisions. Preliminary findings are not a final decision.

Where Facebook sits in the tier

#5
of 26 designated services by EU users
#4
of 23 VLOPs
+476%
above the 45 million threshold

Designation is not a ranking, and the obligations do not scale with size: the smallest designated service carries exactly the same duties in Articles 33 to 43 as the largest.

Amplification, minors, and civic discourse

For a feed-based platform the Article 34 assessment lands squarely on the recommender system: how ranking and amplification shape what spreads, and whether that design contributes to the dissemination of illegal content or to negative effects on civic discourse and electoral processes.

Article 38 requires at least one feed option not based on profiling, directly accessible from the interface where recommendations appear. Article 27, which applies to all online platforms, separately requires the main parameters of the recommender to be explained in the terms.

Article 28 and the July 2025 minors guidelines add a design layer: default settings for minors’ accounts, age assurance, and features that extend engagement are all in scope, and are the subject of several open proceedings.

Article 27
Recommender transparency, applying to all online platforms.
Article 28
Protection of minors, including default account settings.

Before the courts

T-55/24 and T-58/24 General Court Annulled

Meta Platforms Ireland and TikTok Technology v Commission — supervisory fees

Meta and TikTok each challenged the Commission’s implementing decisions setting their Article 43 supervisory fees, arguing the methodology produced arbitrary results — most pointedly that keying the cap to group-level net income means a loss-making provider of identical size can owe nothing at all.

The General Court (Extended Composition) annulled the decisions, but on an institutional ground rather than a substantive one. Because the calculation of average monthly active recipients is essential to determining the fee, Article 43(4) required that methodology to be set out in a delegated act. The Commission had used two implementing decisions instead, and that was the wrong instrument.

The Court maintained the effects of the annulled decisions for twelve months, giving the Commission time to re-adopt the methodology in the proper form. The practical result is that the fees stand for now and the machinery gets rebuilt underneath them.

It remains the only successful challenge brought against any part of the DSA’s designated-service regime — and it turned on administrative law, not on whether the tier is justified.

Every DSA case before the EU courts →

Formal proceedings

Deceptive advertising, civic discourse and researcher data access

Open

Opened 30 April 2024

  • ·Deceptive political advertising and coordinated inauthentic behaviour
  • ·Deprecation of the CrowdTangle research tool (Article 40)
  • ·Notice-and-action and complaint mechanisms

Protection of minors and addictive design

Open

Opened 16 May 2024

  • ·Addictive design and rabbit-hole effects on minors (Articles 34–35)
  • ·Age assurance methods
  • ·Prevention of access by under-13s

All DSA proceedings →

Facebook timeline

  1. 25 April 2023 Designated a VLOP by Commission decision.
  2. 25 August 2023 Articles 33 to 43 begin to apply, four months after notification.
  3. 30 April 2024 Formal proceedings opened ahead of the 2024 European Parliament elections.
  4. 16 May 2024 Formal proceedings opened.
  5. September 2025 General Court judgment in T-55/24 and T-58/24: annulled.
  6. 2026 Commission issues preliminary findings that Meta did not provide DSA-compliant mechanisms to report illegal content or challenge moderation decisions. Preliminary findings are not a final decision.

The full regime timeline →

What Facebook has to do

Designation applies the asymmetric obligations in Articles 33 to 43. They are the same for every designated service, read against a platform surface. Terms used on this page are collected in the glossary.

Related designations

Also designated under Meta Platforms Ireland Limited: Instagram.

Other social services in the tier: Instagram, Pinterest, X, Snapchat, Reddit, LinkedIn.

Designated on the same day (25 April 2023): Google Search, Bing, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps, Instagram, Amazon Store, Wikipedia, TikTok, Pinterest, App Store, X, AliExpress, Snapchat, Zalando, Google Shopping, LinkedIn, Booking.com.