Monday’s release of the much-anticipated EU expert report on protecting children online herald’s tighter rules for social media platforms. The report recommends minors under 13 years of age should only have “time-limited” access to certain platforms.
The European Union will impose a minimum age for young internet users to access social media without parental supervision, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Monday, after presenting a report by a panel of experts she convened last year to look into policies to fights social media harms.
“It is very clear that we need age-appropriate restrictions to platforms. This is not about whether children can access social media. It is about whether and when social media can access our children,” she said.
Ursula von der Leyen has made online child safety a key priority during her second term and this announcement comes as proof of a years-long push to deal with the mental and physical health risks social media pose to minors.
The report that was delivered offers the way forward in the governmental challenge of regulating new technologies that are increasingly embedded in our lives.
Hard age limits are insufficient, according to the expert panel. Rather than recommending strict minimum age for social media access, the expert panel favoured a gradual, age-based approach to children’s use of digital technologies. They advised that children under the age of two should not be exposed to screens at all. Between the ages of three and 13, children should not have unsupervised access to internet-enabled devices, with parents, caregivers, and schools playing an active role in guiding and monitoring their online activity.
Several EU member states have nevertheless moved ahead with proposals for stricter legal age limits. France, for example, plans to introduce a minimum age of 15 for social media access by September, while Cyprus was also one of the first to join the pilot programme for an age verification app earlier this year. Estonia has so far been the only member state to openly oppose such restrictions, while Italy has expressed reservations about adopting hard age limits.
Furthermore, the report argues that the burden of proof should shift to Big Tech, echoing long-standing demands from civil society groups and child rights advocates. Under this approach, platforms would be required to demonstrate that they have built in robust safety measures before their services can be made available to minors.
The report takes aim at other services as well, such as artificial intelligence companions. This category has been named “social media+.” Features like algorithmic recommendation systems and infinite scrolling are designed to “maximise user attention,” and minors are not “equipped” to deal with their effects, the document reads.
However, the long-term goal of this report is that the internet becomes a safe space for everyone. The experts and commission president understand that change will not come as soon as bans are in place, but the report and the adoption of it looks to be a long-haul project.
Finally, the report offers a compromise rather than a definitive answer. It recommends a bloc-wide baseline of 13 as part of a broader framework for introducing minors to the digital world, while allowing parental supervision to override that threshold in some cases.
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