In a court ruling handed down on Thursday 2 October, an Amsterdam court ruled that Meta, with its Instagram and Facebook platforms, must offer users a default news feed option without a personal algorithm.
The case was brought by the civil rights and privacy organisation Bits of Freedom, which demanded that users should be able to directly control their News Feed without being subject to algorithmic bias.
In its ruling, the Dutch court found that Meta was in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA), specifically Article 27, which requires designated platforms to offer at least one content recommendation system that is not based on user profiling.
The company announced its decision to appeal, stating that it had already made substantial changes to its systems in order to comply with the DSA’s regulatory obligations.
“We are continuing our intensive discussions with the European Commission (...) and believe that this matter falls within its remit and should not be brought before the courts of the Member States”, Meta said in a statement to AFP.
The company has been the subject of formal proceedings under the DSA since May 2024 (see EUROPE 13411/1). (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)