On Wednesday, MEPs adopted a non-legislative report by 483 votes in favour, 92 against and with 86 abstentions, expressing deep concern over the physical and mental health risks minors face online and calling for stronger protection against the manipulative strategies that can increase addiction and that are detrimental to children’s ability to concentrate and engage healthily with online content.
Minimum age for social media platformsTo help parents manage their children’s digital presence and ensure age-appropriate online engagement, Parliament proposes a harmonised EU digital minimum age of 16 for access to social media, video-sharing platforms and AI companions, while allowing 13- to 16-year-olds access with parental consent.
Expressing support for the Commission’s work to develop an EU age verification app and the European digital identity (eID) wallet, MEPs insist that age assurance systems must be accurate and preserve minors’ privacy. Such systems do not relieve platforms of their responsibility to ensure their products are safe and age-appropriate by design, they add.
To incentivise better compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and other relevant laws, MEPs suggest senior managers could be made personally liable in cases of serious and persistent non-compliance, with particular respect to protection of minors and age verification.
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According to the 2025 Eurobarometer, over 90% of Europeans believe action to protect children online is a matter of urgency, not least in relation to social media’s negative impact on mental health (93%), cyberbullying (92%) and the need for effective ways to restrict access to age-inappropriate content (92%).
Member states are starting to take action and responding with measures such as age limits and verification systems.
Source: Children should be at least 16 to access social media, say MEPs | News | European Parliament
Expect to see manadatory surveillance on social media (whatever they define that to be) soon as it is clearly “risky”.
The problem is real, but age verification is not the way to solve the problem. Rather, it will make it much, much worse as well as adding new problems entirely.
See also: https://www.linkielist.com/?s=age+verification&submit=Search
Welcome to a new fascist thought controlled Europe, heralded by Denmark.
Robin Edgar
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