Banning the infinite scroll: Pro MP files bill on addictive apps

Social media platforms, games and dating apps should be banned from using designs like the infinite scroll that keep users online and push them into spending money, according to a bill being submitted to parliament on Monday by Pro MP Barbara Kathmann.

Kathmann told broadcaster NOS her bill would class manipulative features in the design of online platforms as “unfair commercial practices”, which are already illegal under Dutch consumer law. She says the current rules are geared to physical products, but online platforms have become “the new high street or marketplace”.

“If a doll is unsafe, we take it off the market,” she said. “If social media platforms are unsafe, they have to go back to the drawing board and be adapted.”

The proposal also covers chatbots. Kathmann said these products contain tricks “that make us addicted and tempt us into spending money, so that a handful of tech billionaires earn a fortune”.

She would prefer the issue to be tackled at EU level, but that would take too long, and hopes a Dutch law will prompt Brussels to act. She is working with MPs in Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy and Portugal who want similar legislation.

Last year, a Dutch court ordered Meta to let Instagram and Facebook users in the Netherlands set a chronological, non-algorithmic feed as their default, in a case brought by digital rights group Bits of Freedom. The appeals court upheld the order in March.