Eurocentric: Banning Social Media For Children Worthy But Futile

Mariia Shalabaieva

For years, the pros and cons of social media have been debated, particularly for young people. Now, several European nations are moving to ban social media for users younger than sixteen. While they may be the first in Europe, Australia has claimed the title as the first to ban social media for younger users, while Nepal attempted a complete ban on social media in late 2025.

Proposed legislation in Europe

On March 31st, the French Senate voted in favor of banning social media for individuals under 15 years old. The legislation was already overwhelmingly approved by the French Parliament in January. As the French Senate is concerned about whether or not the legislation is compatible with European Union law, the proposed French legislation has been sent to be reviewed by the European Commission.  

In February, the Portuguese Parliament passed legislation that bans social media users younger than 13 years old, while parents of children between the ages of 13 and 16 must consent in order for their children to have social media accounts. While most popular social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram are included in the legislation, WhatsApp is excluded due to parents relying on the app to communicate with their children. The National Communications Authority (Anacom) and the National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) will likely be tasked with enforcing the legislation.

Denmark and Italy have both announced that they plan to ban social media for individuals younger than 15 years old later this year.

Australia’s Social Media Ban For Youth

While having good intentions, young people have already found ways around the social media ban. One way is that individuals who are still too young use an ID card of an adult in order to create a profile. This makes the legislation fairly ineffective as young Australians still have access to potentially harmful material on these platforms. This shows that it will be difficult for European nations to truly ban social media for individuals under a certain age threshold as well.

Young people would ideally not be banned from these sites, but the issue is that on websites where users are freely able to share a variety of content, including posts or comments that include text, images, videos, and audio messages, younger individuals may be exposed to but not be appropriate for them to view. This effectively could force children to grow up too soon, prematurely ending their childhoods.

Nepal’s Governmental Collapse

While there may be a push to protect young people, it is also important not to go too far. An example of this can be found in Nepal. As a result of a ban on social media, Gen Z protestors took to the streets, eventually overthrowing the government. This is because social media is represented as a tool for young people to discuss problems they and the nation face, such as high youth unemployment and a lack of opportunities, due to government corruption. The social media ban became a tool to censure young people, hiding severe problems that Nepal faces as a nation.

While this situation is different from proposed bans in Europe, which would only ban social media for younger individuals, it demonstrates how social media bans can become a slippery slope. While there may be good motivations for proposed legislation in the interest of protecting young people from content that may not be appropriate for them, social media bans can quickly spiral out of control if not carefully limited. Social media bans mustn't be used as a tool to censure younger members of society, as was the case in Nepal.

While Gen Z Nepalese successfully defeated the proposed legislation, it came at a heavy price.77 individuals lost their lives to preserve their rights and have the capacity to criticize the government online. While the proposed legislation in Europe is extremely unlikely to lead to a similar situation, it is still important for politicians to take heed and not attempt to pass overreaching legislation.

Russia Serves As A Warning

Since last year, Russia has restricted access to the internet. Recently, a video appeared on social media platforms, including X, showing a children’s choir singing about the benefits of children not using the internet. While in general, people may agree with the notion that children should spend more time playing outside and less time with an electronic device, the song comes across as ominous. Given that the Russian government is cracking down on the internet, it appears to want to encourage children who will become future voters not to use the internet. This could make it challenging to access content that would be potentially critical of the Russian government.

Crackdown On All Citizens

As legislation may require individuals to upload a copy of their ID card in order to use a social media platform, this can turn into censorship of any citizen, regardless of their age. Germany already attempted this by starting a criminal investigation into a Gab user for insulting a German politician. This highlights the issue of governments potentially weaponizing the collection of ID cards for the purpose of age verification with users, only to then use this information to prosecute individuals who criticize the government.  

Conclusion

European nations interested in banning social media appear to be motivated to do so for the right reasons, but there are many challenges with creating an effective ban. While legislation may place mechanisms in place to verify age, such as uploading a photo of an ID card, it is difficult to know if it is truly the individual of the ID card always using a specific social media account. European nations must also be careful not to take away the capacity of young people to express themselves and their political beliefs, as was the case in Nepal or the crackdown on internet access in Russia. It is a slippery slope between trying to protect young people and restricting their ability to express themselves, along with the general public. Governments are supposed to work for the people and should not use legislation to censor citizens from expressing themselves, including teenagers. As can be seen in Australia, children have also already found ways around the ban, making the law futile.