BRUSSELS — An EU ban on social media for kids is coming, but measures must go beyond a simple ban-or-no-ban approach, a top official told POLITICO.
Calls for age restrictions on social media are growing as countries explore ways to protect minors’ well-being online. France, Greece, Spain and Cyprus are moving forward with national legislation, citing risks to children’s mental health and development, while the Commission is waiting on the recommendation of a panel of experts expected in July.
“If you read the political debate … some form of ban” is coming, the European Commission’s digital department’s head of minors protection, Martin Harris-Hess, said at POLITICO’s AI & Tech Week in Brussels. But the EU’s efforts must extend beyond a simple “binary yes or no ban” and instead focus on making the online space safer for all minors, said Harris-Hess.
Harris-Hess referenced a ministerial meeting in Nicosia last week, where EU capitals aligned on an EU-wide restriction, as an indication of the political momentum.
Whatever form a ban takes, if it is decided, it is necessary to discuss “What is the environment we want to see for those who can access the service?’ It can’t be nothing, it has to be some form of protection,” for those minors between the lower age set by restrictions and the 18-year-old age of majority, he said.
While saying that legally, an EU-wide ban is a possibility, Harris-Hess rejected the word “ban” as “emotionally laden” and said measures would face “practical difficulties,” as evidenced in Australia.
Canberra introduced an under-16 social media ban last year, which has produced no meaningful changes in platform behavior or among children, according to the Australian government’s assessments.
Sonia Livingstone — a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science who is leading the Commission’s panel of experts — came out strongly against a blanket ban on the panel, telling POLITICO that age restrictions are not easy to define or implement.
“The ban sounds simple, and it isn’t,” she said. “What will we ban? Which services? How will we ban them? What will we provide for children when we have banned them? How will we even know if we have banned them? And what about the children who find the workarounds? Aren’t they even more at risk? So it’s not the simple route,” Livingstone said.
The technical aspects of implementing restrictions are still up in the air. The Commission released an age-verification app blueprint in late April, but security flaws were soon discovered, which the Commission then said it patched.
Capitals have expressed reservations about the EU app for various reasons. Several countries are already developing their own age-verification apps or have already released them.
Noting that the EU already has a legal basis to protect children online — Article 28 of the Digital Services Act — Livingstone said enforcing the current, complex rules or imposing a ban on social media would not be that different.
“Both of these policies depend crucially on two things. One is effective enforcement by the Commission … The other is effective identification of who is the child,” she said.
Expressing reservations about a full-scale ban, Livingstone said that if the EU can solve those two challenges: “Why would we go for the simple solution of just banning children from a digital world, and why would we not then implement the thoughtful child rights’-respecting solution [of making it safer online], which would be better for children and for everybody?”
