The European Commission has opened an investigation into Snapchat over concerns that the social messaging app is exposing children to grooming, sexual exploitation and other criminality.

The announcements came after a landmark ruling in a Los Angeles court found that two social mediacompanies, Meta and YouTube, had deliberately created addictive products that harmed a young user. The EU is weighing whether to follow Australia and ban social media for the under-16s.

Opening its first case against Snapchat, the commission said that it suspected that the messaging app was allowing its services to be misused by adults, who pretended to be minors to lure children into sexual exploitation and other criminal activities.

Regulators also fear the app is a source of information about drugs and age-restricted products, such as alcohol and vapes. Snapchat reports 94.7 million monthly users in the EU and is hugely popular among teens and young people.

Under Snapchat’s own terms and conditions, users must be at least 13 years old. However, EU regulators believe the company is failing to ensure this age limit is respected. They also believe users are not given adequate guidance on privacy and safety features, while mechanisms to report illegal content are not user-friendly.

The latest decision means EU regulators will carry out a detailed investigation and can order the company to take preventive steps to protect children, pending any final decision.

Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s Executive Vice President for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said that Snapchat “appears to have overlooked” the [Digital Services Act] DSA’s “high safety standards for all users.” She added that the investigation will scrutinize Snapchat’s compliance with EU legislation.

In response, Snapchat said in a statement that it has “fully cooperated” with the Commission by “engaging proactively, transparently and working in good faith to meet the DSA’s high safety standards – and we will continue to do so throughout this investigation.”

It stressed that user safety and well-being is a “top priority” and the platform is designed with “privacy and safety built in from the start, including additional protection for teens.”

A Snapchat Spokesperson said that the app is designed to help people communicate with close friends and family “in a positive, trusted environment, with privacy and safety built in from the start – including additional protections for teens.” The Spokesperson added, “As online risks evolve, we continuously review, strengthen, and invest in these safeguards.”

European Commission Accuses Four Pornographic Websites Of Failing To Prevent Children From Accessing Adult Content

In a separate decision, the European Commission said that four pornographic websites were failing to prevent minors seeing adult content.

The investigations into the companies, including Snapchat, were brought under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which has come under fire from Donald Trump since coming into force two years ago.

Aiming to protect European society from a wide-range of internet harms, the DSA includes child safety provisions to combat cyberbullying, exposure to adult content and illegal products.

In the separate announcement, the commission accused four pornographic websites, Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos, of failing to prevent children from accessing adult content.

After an investigation launched last May, the commission concluded the four websites “did not diligently identify and assess the risks that their platforms pose to minors.”

To access the sites, children and young people could simply click a button saying they were over 18, a self-declaration system deemed ineffective by EU regulators.

In the preliminary findings, regulators said that additional measures such as page blurring and warning labels aren’t enough. Officials said that age verification tools are needed. “Children are accessing adult content at increasingly younger ages and these platforms must put in place robust, privacy-preserving and effective measures to keep minors off their services,” Virkkunen said.

However, XVideos pushed back against the findings. “The European Commission is asking us to commit suicide for nothing,” XVideos said in a statement.

“Adding age checks on four sites out of a million does nothing to prevent minors from accessing adult content, as we know they will simply move to other, less safe sites that are completely out of reach of regulators — contrary to what the Commission claims — and will cause a massive regression and loss of control.”
XVideos

The companies may now examine the findings, and have the chance to formally respond to the accusations before the commission issues a final decision.

They could end the investigation by producing forms of age verification deemed effective by EU regulators. However, if the complaint is upheld the four websites could be fined up to 6% of global annual turnover.