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| EU Chief proposes bloc-wide social media ban for kids under 13 | | |
Early Times Report
BRUSSELS, Sept 16: The European Union’s top official proposed on 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 protect young people using platforms such as Instagram and TikTok 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 sexualized 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 U.S. President Donald Trump, who has long criticized Europe’s tech regulations. Brando Benifei, an Italian member of the European Parliament, said he supported the plan and that Brussels shouldn’t shy away from a showdown with the dominant U.S. tech companies. “To apply this, you need to confront in a very frontal way the interests of platforms and Big Tech who are not happy with this,” he said. Von der Leyen was advancing a plan 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.” |
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