Instagram fined in Ireland. After looking into how Meta handled the data of teenagers, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) penalized the company €405 million (about $402 million). According to DPC spokesperson Caolmhe McGuire, the verdict and penalties were finalized last Friday and “full details of the decision will emerge next week.”
The end of this week was the DPC’s deadline for coming to a conclusion on this issue. The investigation, which was launched almost two years ago, concentrated on two potential GDPR violations by the corporation. The first was when Instagram started enabling users between the ages of 13 and 17 to create business accounts, making their contact details available to the public. Users occasionally switch to corporate accounts because they get access to greater engagement analytics when they do so. Additionally, some young users’ Instagram profiles allegedly became public by default.
The biggest penalty DPC imposes on Meta
This fine, which easily surpasses the 225 million euros ($267 million at the time) the company faced after the DPC found that WhatsApp failed to adequately inform EU citizens about how it collected and used their data, particularly regarding how it shared that data back with Meta, is the third and largest the DPC has imposed on Meta. WhatsApp announced that it would appeal the decision to modify its privacy policy. A somewhat smaller fine of 17 million euros (about $18.6 million) was also imposed for improper record-keeping in connection with security breaches. Numerous further investigations by the DPC into Big Tech firms are currently ongoing, several of which also concern Meta’s data practices.
According to a statement provided to Politico by Meta, the company changed the public-by-default setting more than a year ago. “Anyone under 18 automatically has their account set to private when they join Instagram, so only people they know can see what they post, and adults cannot message teens who don’t follow them,” the company said. According to the corporation, “we disagree with how this punishment was computed and want to fight it,” according to the Associated Press.
Due in large part to Frances Haugen’s testimony regarding Instagram’s impact on mental health, a great deal of attention has been paid to how Meta, and Instagram in particular, manage the online experience of its youngest users in recent years. Additionally, Instagram has attempted to develop more products for those young users, but this has been received with a strong reaction.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has advocated in support of this initiative, saying that “I have to believe parents would prefer the opportunity for their children to use an age-appropriate version of Instagram — that provides them oversight — than the alternative.” In order to make it happen, he pledged to collaborate with authorities. Meta added that it has also supported the latest DPC inquiry.
Instagram is getting paid
On the other hand, Meta plans to bring some paid features to Facebook and Instagram. The new company is Meta’s first real attempt to integrate paid products across these three big social media networks, which together have billions of users. It was developed because Meta’s advertising business was negatively damaged by Apple’s changes to iOS ad monitoring and a broader drop in digital advertising spending. The group will be led by Pratiti Raychoudhury, who was formerly Meta’s head of research. Name of the organization: New Monetization Experiences.
Even while all of Meta’s applications already include a variety of premium features, the social media juggernaut hasn’t prioritized charging users until now. The majority of Meta’s revenue comes from adverts. Paid features probably won’t have a big impact on the company’s operations in the near future, according to John Hegeman, vice president of monetization at Meta. However, he added, “on the flip side, I think if there are opportunities to both create new value and meaningful revenue lines and also provide some diversification, that’s obviously going to be something that will be appealing.”
