Brussels unveils plan to bar under 13s from social media platforms

The European Commission has proposed banning children under 13 from social media and placing accounts for those aged 13 to 15 under parental control, part of a broader package meant to shield minors from online harm.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the plan on Thursday in Strasbourg, framing it as a response to growing alarm over how digital platforms affect young users. “Today, our children are engaging with some of the most sophisticated technology ever created, and it was not created with children’s well-being and development in mind,” she told reporters. She said the proposed EU Kids Act would establish clear boundaries in the digital world in the same way societies already do offline.

Under the plan, social media platforms, video sharing services, online video games and artificial intelligence chatbots serving users under 18 would face a detailed set of requirements. Platforms would have to disable addictive features, profiling based recommendation feeds, infinite scroll and reward mechanics for younger users, along with blocking unsolicited contact from strangers. AI companions and chatbots would need to remain switched off by default rather than opt in. Companies would also have to redesign their algorithms to reduce risk for children and give parents accessible tools to manage accounts, block other users and mute unwanted contact.

The proposal targets some of the largest platforms operating in Europe, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube and TikTok, alongside AI chatbot services such as ChatGPT. It still needs approval from EU member states and the European Parliament before becoming binding law, a process expected to stretch over several months of negotiation.

Von der Leyen’s announcement follows comparable steps already taken or under discussion in Australia, Britain, China, India, Turkey and individual EU countries, reflecting a wider international push to restrict how minors interact with social platforms. Officials pointed to Australia’s experience enforcing its under 16 ban as a cautionary example, noting that the country has struggled with compliance and workaround use since the law took effect, a challenge Europe may also confront once its own rules take hold.

The Commission’s move builds on a debate that has run for more than a year inside EU institutions. The European Parliament voted last November to call for a bloc wide ban on social media for teenagers under 16, citing mental health concerns and worries about how online platforms shape political discourse among young users. Von der Leyen told lawmakers a year ago that she was studying Australia’s approach and would convene a panel of experts to recommend next steps, a process that has now produced Thursday’s formal proposal.

Individual governments had already begun moving on their own before Brussels acted. French President Emmanuel Macron said in June that France would impose a national ban on social media access for under 15s within months if the EU failed to act first, a pledge that followed a stabbing at a school by a 14 year old student. Age limits for platforms such as TikTok and Instagram currently sit at 13 across most of the bloc, set individually by member states rather than through unified EU law, which has left enforcement inconsistent from country to country.

The proposal arrives amid a broader reckoning over the effects of social media and AI tools on children’s mental health. Regulators and courts in several jurisdictions have pursued major platforms over child safety failures in recent months, including a large settlement in which Meta agreed to pay billions of dollars to resolve lawsuits alleging its products fostered addiction among young users. California has also enacted new state level curbs on children’s social media use, adding to a patchwork of rules that lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic are now trying to consolidate into firmer, more consistent standards.

Whether the EU can enforce an outright ban on under 13 users remains an open question, given that verifying a user’s age online has proven difficult even for platforms already required to do so under existing law. Negotiations between the Commission, member states and the European Parliament will determine the final shape of the Kids Act, including how strict its enforcement mechanisms become and how quickly companies must comply once the legislation passes.