Portuguese rights group sues Meta, TikTok and YouTube over addictive design
Portuguese digital rights group D3 has filed four collective lawsuits against Meta, ByteDance and Alphabet over features it says keep users hooked.
A Portuguese digital rights organisation has launched legal action against the companies behind Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, alleging that the platforms are built to keep users compulsively engaged.
The group, D3, said it filed four collective actions — a mechanism that lets associations pursue cases on behalf of a wider group of consumers — with Lisbon's Civil Court. The suits were submitted between April and May and only made public now, after Portugal's judicial summer recess.
The defendants are Meta, ByteDance and Alphabet, the parent companies of the four platforms. None of them had responded to requests for comment at the time the filings became known.
D3 is represented by the law firm Andersen Tax & Legal Iberia. The group said the aim is to hold the platforms accountable and compel them to offer users a safe experience.
At the centre of the complaints are design choices such as infinite scrolling, videos that play automatically, persistent notifications and highly personalised recommendation systems. According to D3, these features strip out natural pauses in use, continuously feed users tailored content and repeatedly pull them back — creating behavioural loops similar to techniques long associated with gambling.
"Platforms do not have to be hyper-addictive," D3 president Ricardo Lafuente said, arguing that a healthy, productive and educational social media ecosystem is achievable if rules are strong, properly enforced and aimed at those who keep ignoring them.
The Portuguese case adds to growing pressure on social media firms on both sides of the Atlantic. In February, TikTok was charged under European Union rules over allegedly addictive features. In August, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle addiction-related claims in the United States.
Data compiled by SocialMediaTransparency.org indicates that the four platforms together reached 33 million monthly users in Portugal in the first half of 2026.