Meta hit with EU probe, publisher suits

Meta got hit from two sides on May 5. In Europe, Ireland’s digital regulator opened two formal investigations into Facebook and Instagram. In New York, a group of major textbook and academic publishers sued over Llama training. Put together, the pressure is pretty clear — regulators are going after how Meta designs choice on the front end, and rightsholders are going after what Meta may have taken on the back end. (cnam.ie) ### What did Ireland actually open? Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán said it started two separate formal investigations under the EU Digital Services Act, both aimed at Meta’s Facebook and Instagram interfaces. The focus is not generic “algorithm concerns.” It is narrower and more concrete — whether users can choose and later modify a rec(cnam.ie)le away from that option. (cnam.ie) ### Why does “dark patterns” matter here? Because the DSA does not just care about having a settings option somewhere in the maze. It cares about whether that option is direct, easy to reach, and not undermined by deceptive interface design. The Irish regulator pointed straight at Articles 25 and 27, saying the concern is that users (cnam.ie)s a design case, basically — not a content moderation case. (cnam.ie) ### Why is Ireland the one doing this? Meta’s main EU base is in Ireland, so Irish authorities often act as the lead national regulator for big platform cases. Coimisiún na Meán also said it has been working with the European Commission and other national coordinators on this issue. So even though this looks like an Irish move, it sits inside a broader EU enforcement machine. (cnam.ie) ### Is this separate from Meta’s teen-safety problems? Yes — but it is landing right on top of them. On April 29, 2026, the European Commission said it had preliminarily found Meta in breach of the DSA for failing to properly stop children under 13 from accessing Instagram and Facebook. The Commission said kids could enter a false bi(cnam.ie)another on manipulative interface design. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu) ### What is Meta doing on teen safety right now? Interestingly, Meta used the same day to announce more age-assurance measures. It said it is expanding AI systems to detect underage users, remove under-13 accounts, and automatically place suspected teens into Teen(digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)ssure is heaviest. (about.fb.com) ### What about the publishers’ lawsuit? The publishers’ case is a different battlefield. The named plaintiffs include Cengage, Elsevier, Macmillan Learning, and McGraw Hill, and the complaint was filed in Manhattan federal court. The core claim is copyright infringement tied to AI training on protected books and journal content. Even without the full Meta complai(about.fb.com)some of the biggest owners of educational and scholarly catalogs. (courtlistener.com) ### Why do these two fights connect? Because both are really fights over defaults and provenance. On the product side, Europe is asking whether Meta makes the privacy-protective choice meaningfully available. On the model side, publishers are asking whether Meta can show where training data came from and whether it had the rights to us(courtlistener.com)m exists” if the path into it is murky. (cnam.ie) ### Bottom line? This is not one bad headline. It is a map of where Meta is vulnerable now — feed design, child-age enforcement, and AI data sourcing. The catch is that fixing one does not fix the others. Meta can add teen safeguards fast. Proving clean training-data provenance, or redesigning choice flows so regulators stop seeing manipulation, is the slower and more structural job. (cnam.ie)