Brussels: The European Union’s top official proposed Wednesday banning children under 13 across the 27-nation bloc from using social media sites and imposing limits for older teens on accessing the platforms.
The plan outlined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen adds to global efforts to stop and protect young people from online harm.
“I am aware that many perceive the power of Big Tech as overwhelming and impossible to roll back. I disagree,” von der Leyen said in her annual State of the European Union speech in Strasbourg.
“We do not have to accept addictive features. We do not have to accept children being drawn into ever more extreme content. We do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI-generated sexualised images,” she said.
Von der Leyen said that under her proposal “mini accounts” chaperoned by guardians would be granted to kids aged 13-15, with limits on features and the amount of time they can be accessed.
For 15-to-18-year-olds, platforms will need to provide a “safe design,” she said. Further details of the plan are expected Thursday.
The EU’s 27 member nations still need to debate and vote on the proposal, which could take years and spark tensions with US President Donald Trump, who has long criticised Europe’s tech regulations.
Von der Leyen used her speech to advance a plan that she foreshadowed earlier this year, when she said kids should be exposed to social media in a “phased and gradual” way.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok already prohibit anyone under 13 from opening an account, but authorities have accused the companies of failing to keep them off.
But some experts said the commission was failing to tackle a more fundamental issue with the social media industry’s core business practices based on getting users hooked on scrolling through addictive content while showing them ads.
The plan “merely delays young people’s exposure to the risks of online harm instead of addressing the business model and extractive practices which fuel it,” said Simeon de Brouwer, a policy advisor at digital rights group EDRi. The platforms will “unavoidably target them as soon as they’re a day older than the threshold.”
The commission’s proposal is part of a wider global push to protect young people online and represents the first move to introduce a bloc-wide age limit for social media.
Individual European countries such as Spain and Portugal have taken their own steps to ban teens from social media platforms, mirroring regulatory actions in other places like Australia and New Zealand.
Some efforts have run into roadblocks. France’s top court last month struck down a law banning children under 15 from social media, saying it infringed on fundamental freedoms. French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to rework the proposal.
In the United States, social media company Meta Platforms last month agreed to pay up to USD 18 billion and add stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms to resolve a trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by nearly every state.
Manfred Weber, the head of the largest group in the European Parliament, spoke after von der Leyen to propose that the EU follow Australia’s lead in allowing citizens to switch off social media algorithms.
“Elon Musk will not like it, but probably that is a reason for doing it,” he said.
Von der Leyen also weighed in on the intensifying debate about artificial intelligence and the potential risks it poses to humanity, saying the commission would discuss efforts to slow down advanced AI development with leading AI companies.
She said the EU would work with “like-minded partners” like Canada and Britain.
“We want to team up on model evaluation, verification, early warning, AI security and much more,” she said.
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