strongly backed<\/a> by France\u2019s President Emmanuel Macron. He will now sign it into law.<\/p>\n\u201cSocial media will be banned for children under 15 starting this school year,\u201d he posted on X after the vote as he thanked lawmakers for passing the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brains of our children and our teenagers are not for sale,\u201d he had said in a video message in January. \u201cThe emotions of our children and our teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, neither by American platforms nor by Chinese algorithms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Macron had ordered the French government to expedite the bill\u2019s passage through parliament, with the aim of having legislation in place for the beginning of the new next school year in September.<\/p>\n
It is not yet clear how the social media sites will verify users\u2019 ages. Australia requires companies to \u201ctake reasonable steps\u201d to prevent underage children from opening or keeping accounts, and the French government has promised to implement age controls to back up the law.<\/p>\n
Earlier versions of the legislation also included proposals for a ban on advertising promoting social media to children, including by influencers, and to require advertisements for social media platforms to carry the warning: \u201cDangerous products for children under 15.\u201d However, these plans did not make it into the final bill.<\/p>\n
The new law will be enforced by Arcom, France\u2019s audiovisual and digital communications regulator. It is expected to apply to all the major platforms.<\/p>\n
According to Arcom, children aged 12 to 17 in France spend an average of 1 hour and 21 minutes a day on TikTok. The regulator says the platform\u2019s recommendation algorithm tends to promote the most \u201cextreme\u201d content, exposing teenagers to a continuous stream of anxiety-inducing or otherwise harmful videos.<\/p>\n
Social media companies say they already take steps to protect children from some kinds of content.<\/p>\n
\u2018Real change of atmosphere\u2019<\/p>\n
The proposal for a ban was welcomed by many French parents earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s great,\u201d mother-of-six Geraldine Delacroix told CNN in March. \u201cNow I\u2019m waiting to see how it\u2019s workable, but in any case, it\u2019s better than nothing,\u201d she added, noting that children could often get around existing parental controls. \u201cEven if we block, they find ways to get around it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In her work as a pediatrician, Delacroix has seen a growing distrust of smartphones and social media over the past decade among her patients\u2019 families. \u201cPeople are tense (about smartphones),\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a real change of atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her daughter Ariane said she saw little downside to the ban, but wished it had come in sooner, telling CNN it was \u201ca bit too late for the young people of my generation who are 13 to 14.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a tendency to say, \u2018OK, I\u2019m just going to look at my phone for five or 10 minutes\u2019 and then, as it\u2019s super-addictive, we spend an hour, two hours on the phone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ariane, who is on all the major social networks, said that while they provided \u201cfast, easy entertainment, without effort,\u201d she saw almost no upside for children of her own age.<\/p>\n
Her older sister, Gabrielle, who said she\u2019d had access to Instagram and TikTok since before her 10th birthday \u2013 well before the age limit of 13 for most social networks \u2013 blamed Covid-19-era lockdowns for sowing bad habits of excessive smartphone use among her generation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you\u2019re, like, used to it, you just keep on using it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gabrielle added that she had no doubt that children would find ways around the restrictions and suggested the platforms should instead do more to filter out dangerous content.<\/p>\n
\u2018Not a toy\u2019<\/p>\n
For the countries looking into age restrictions, ensuring effective age verification is a major challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cBans alone won\u2019t be enough,\u201d French Education Minister \u00c9douard Geffray told lawmakers in January. \u201cWe can\u2019t just restrict, we have to educate and propose different ways of socializing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katia Roux, of Amnesty International France, sounded a similar note on Tuesday. \u201cThe debate over banning social media for those under 15 is legitimate,\u201d she told CNN. \u201cHowever, this measure is not enough to make digital platforms safe. Only a shift in the business model of social media companies will truly protect all users. To begin with, the platforms\u2019 addictive and manipulative features must be banned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Across OECD<\/a> countries in 2022, at least half of 15-year-olds in most countries spent 30 hours or more per week on digital devices, including learning activities in or out of school.<\/p>\nLast week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said warned that \u201csocial media is not a toy,\u201d in a statement calling for \u201cage-appropriate restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Europe, whoever develops a product is responsible for its safety. Car manufacturers must make their vehicles safe. We do not expect children to design their own seatbelts. We do not expect parents to fit airbags at home,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThis is not about whether children can access social media. It is about whether and when social media can access our children.\u201d<\/p>\n
In France, some opposition lawmakers opposed the bill at an earlier stage over concerns about free speech and access to informative online content. Some senators had proposed a blacklist of certain social media platforms.<\/p>\n
Teenager Nelya Ouali, whose mother does not permit her to have her own smartphone, said the law could impact her access to educational videos.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won\u2019t be able to get more information as a result, because we don\u2019t watch much television anymore,\u201d she said, as she and her friends favor influencers\u2019 videos. \u201cBut it\u2019s still important for communication. Social networks are still important; they allow us to talk with our friends,\u201d she said. \u201cThey allow us to be entertained, to take our minds off things.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is not the first time France has restricted access to online material. A ban on access to online pornography for minors overcame legal challenges to finally come into effect in 2025. It requires users to provide proof of age.<\/p>\n
The-CNN-Wire<\/p>\n
\u2122 & \u00a9 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paris (CNN) \u2014 French lawmakers voted Tuesday to ban social media use for children under the age of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39,40,11894],"class_list":["post-99531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}