Europe is moving to put a hard boundary around children’s digital lives. The European Union has proposed strict age limits and safety rules for social media, online games, AI assistants, video sharing apps, and chatbots, shifting responsibility onto the companies that run them.
The plan reaches beyond age checks. It would ban addictive features, restrict harmful recommendation systems, protect children’s privacy by default, and require platforms to prove they are safe before minors use them.
A New Age Map for Social Media Access
The legal proposal follows an announcement from European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen that the 27-country bloc intends to ban children under 13 from social media. Children under 15 would receive only limited, supervised access, creating a tiered system based on age and parental oversight.
Children aged 15 and over would be able to set up social media accounts. Children aged 13 and 14 could use “mini accounts” connected to a parent or guardian’s account, but those accounts would carry strict safeguards, including a screen time limit of one hour a day.
Parents would gain tools to manage minors’ accounts, limit access to services, and control online time. An age-check app is also being prepared to ensure children below the age thresholds cannot access social media, and the app would not share data with platforms.
Platforms themselves would have to use an age assurance tool to verify a user’s age. That requirement places the age gate at the center of the proposal, while the separate app is designed to keep age-check information away from social media companies.
Breaking the Features Designed to Keep Children Online
The proposed rules target the mechanics that can pull children into longer sessions. Platforms would face a ban on addictive features, including so-called endless scrolling and push notifications while children sleep.
Profiling-based recommender feeds that lead users toward harmful content would also be banned. The same would apply to reward mechanisms and unsolicited contact from strangers, cutting off several ways platforms can steer attention or create unwanted connections.
Children’s profiles would be private by default. Location, camera, and microphone access would be turned off, while blocking or muting users would need to remain easy to use.
The safeguards would cover more than social networks. Social media, video sharing apps, online video games, AI companions, and chatbots would all need to be safe before children use them, extending the proposal into the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence.
AI chatbots would face a specific boundary: they must not “simulate interpersonal relationships in ways that create emotional dependency.” That language focuses on how conversational systems interact with children, not only on the information they provide.
Companies Must Prove Their Platforms Are Safe
The EU is “reversing the burden of proof,” requiring companies to demonstrate that their platforms are safe. Ursula von der Leyen captured the shift in one sentence: “Now they have to prove to us that they are safe.”
That change could reshape how platforms prepare products for younger users. Instead of waiting for regulators to identify problems after launch, companies would need to build safety measures into the service before children receive access.
Platforms would have to submit a “compliance plan” to the European Commission and an independent auditor for assessment. The EU Commission, acting as the digital watchdog, would assess compliance, while the European Parliament would be involved in negotiations over the rules.
The financial stakes are high. Violations could lead to fines of up to six percent of annual turnover, giving companies a strong reason to examine account settings, recommendation feeds, notifications, age checks, and chatbot behavior.
The proposal now places social media and AI services at the center of a broad child-safety test. Can platforms prove that their design choices protect minors, rather than pushing them toward more screen time, more recommendations, or deeper emotional engagement with automated systems?
The answer will shape the next stage of negotiations and determine how children in the European Union use digital services. With age limits, parent controls, private profiles, and proof of safety all moving into the same framework, Europe is pressing technology companies to treat child protection as a starting requirement, not a later fix.
Based on
- Social media is in the hot seat — techmonitor.ai
- Kids and social media: What would change under new EU law – The Japan Times — japantimes.co.jp
- Kids and social media: what would change under new EU law | AFP.com — origin-zh9p7m-www.afp.com
- BBC Audio | World Business Report | How can the EU make a social media ban a success? — bbc.com
