The news that the European Commission is to bring proposals to bar young teenagers from social media may come as a relief to many people.
Commission president Ursula von der Leyen outlined the proposed ban during her EU State of the Union address on Wednesday.
The EU Kids Act, due to be unveiled fully on Thursday, will include a minimum age of 13 years for a child in the bloc access social media at all, she said, and a minimum age of 15 to open their own account independent of their parents. It will also mandate “safe by design” online environments for those users aged between 15 and 18.
“No social media under 13, no personal social media under 15,” von der Leyen said. “That means, from 13 until a child turns 15, only mini accounts set up and supervised by parents, with limited features and time restriction. And between 15 and 18, safe design will be an obligation for the platforms.”
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It may be a relief to parents, under pressure from children who want to be where their friends are on Instagram, TikTok and other social media. It will be far easier to win an argument on the use of these apps when the rules are laid down by the EU rather than left up to individual parents.
It may also be a relief for politicians, who will be able to pat themselves on the back for “solving” a social media problem, without addressing the root cause: that social media can be harmful, and content can be toxic, regardless of the age of the user.
But don’t build your hopes too high just yet. Banning teenagers from social media isn’t a magic bullet, and its effectiveness is still under scrutiny.
Australia was the first country to bring in a social media ban for under-16s, bringing in the new regime from December last year. The maximum penalties for platforms that did not stick to the rules were initially set at almost 50 million Australian dollars (€30 million); that was later doubled to 99 million Australian dollars when the government decided the platforms were not doing enough.
[ Australian teens returning to TikTok after ban, data showsOpens in new window ]
In the grand scheme of tech revenues and profits, that fine is a small one, a rounding error on a quarterly balance sheet. But Australia’s move got people talking, and it pushed other countries into promising to implement similar measures.
The only problem? Australia’s ban hasn’t quite kicked the kids off social media. At first, there was an initial flurry of activity as accounts belonging to underage users were identified and shut down.
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But more than eight months after the ban was introduced, it seems that it may not be as effective as hoped. Recent research from internet safety company Qustodio found that not only were younger users back on the platforms in force, the numbers of 13- to 15-year-olds on TikTok were back to within one percentage point of the rate before the ban. And among 10- to 12-year-olds, the figures were higher than before the ban.
It turns out that children and teenagers are resourceful and can find their way around roadblocks put in place. Virtual private networks, fake accounts and other workarounds have been employed to get back online, hobbling the effectiveness of the ban.
[ New Zealand plans to ban under-16s from social media platformsOpens in new window ]
That is not to say we shouldn’t try. The EU plan seems to acknowledge the difficulties faced here, talking about a “delay” rather than a block for younger users. But the plans are still at an early stage. There may be a clash between what member states are already planning for social media versus the EU regime; France has already had to adjust its own plans due to constitutional constraints.
You can expect plenty of pushback from the social media giants before the final rules are adopted. But it may also reduce incentives to tackle some of the problems with their platforms.
“I am aware that many perceive the power of big tech as overwhelming and impossible to roll back,” von der Leyen said. “I disagree.”
“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 added.
Tech platforms are nothing without their users. But it is clear Big Tech needs more than a gentle nudge to take action when it comes to protecting users, regardless of their age.
