Dutch bill targets infinite scroll

The Dutch parliament has been given a proposal that goes after one of the internet’s most familiar habits: keeping people there.

Barbara Kathmann, an MP from the opposition centre-left party Progressief Nederland, submitted a bill on 2 November that would ban what she called the most harmful addictive design features on digital platforms. Euronews reported that the list includes infinite scrolling, autoplay video, push notifications and what the proposal describes as manipulative algorithms.

That is a broader ambition than the usual fight over one app or one age group. Kathmann said the bill is meant to protect both children and adults. It would place a “fairness by design” duty of care on digital platforms, requiring them to show that their services are not addictive and that their features are built to be fair and non-manipulative.

The political argument here is simple enough for anyone who has watched a child struggle to put a phone down, or failed to do it themselves. The harder question is legal: how a government defines an addictive design feature tightly enough to survive challenge, while still catching the ordinary mechanics that make platforms sticky. Infinite scroll and autoplay are easier targets because they are visible product choices. “Manipulative algorithms” is a larger and less tidy category, and one that would likely produce a fight over evidence, enforcement and where recommendation ends and coercion begins.

Kathmann is presenting the bill as a way for the Netherlands to move before the European Union finishes its own work. Euronews said she has been working with parliamentarians in Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy and Portugal who also want tighter rules on harmful platform design. Kim van Sparrentak, a Dutch MEP from the same party, backed the proposal and linked it to an effort she led in the European Parliament in 2023 calling on the European Commission to propose an EU ban on addictive design.

The proposal lands as Brussels is preparing a wider digital consumer package. According to Euronews, the European Commission is due to table measures under its Digital Fairness Act in November, with an EU-wide ban on addictive design among the ideas under discussion. Other legislation in the pipeline, including the EU Kids Act, is intended to push more responsibility onto platforms to make their services safe by design rather than leaving the burden with parents or users.

That shift matters because “use it less” has never been much of a policy. These companies do not simply host content; they arrange attention. A feed that does not end, a clip that starts before a person chooses it, a notification calibrated to interrupt at exactly the right moment: none of this proves harm on its own, and the article does not set out a specific enforcement standard yet. But it does describe a political decision to treat design as conduct, not just convenience.

There is also a practical risk for lawmakers. A law written too vaguely can become theatre, especially against companies with money, lawyers and an incentive to rename the same mechanics. A law written well could force a more basic change: platforms would have to justify engagement tools that have long been treated as normal simply because they are common.