French lawmakers approve social media ban for teenagers beneath 15 : NPR
FILE – Telephones are stored for charging at a Medical doctors With out Borders casual camp in Mardyck, northern France, Wednesday, July 2, 2025.
Nicolas Garriga/AP
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Nicolas Garriga/AP
PARIS — France banned youngsters beneath 15 from utilizing social media on Tuesday, turning into the primary nation within the European Union to move a blanket ban on the platforms as issues develop worldwide over the dangerous results of digital content material on children.
Each chambers of the Parliament voted in favor of the measure, a flagship initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron’s second time period. The invoice additionally bans using cellphones in excessive faculties.
A number of households in France have sued TikTok over teen suicides they are saying are linked to dangerous content material. Kids’s advocates and fogeys applauded the vote.
“We have been campaigning for this invoice from the beginning as a result of, frankly, we’ve got no different choice, no different approach to counter tech giants,” mentioned Gaëlle Berbonde, a 52-year-old who lives within the Paris area. “The one factor we will do is shield our kids, simply as we shield our kids from consuming alcohol.”
Berbonde advised The Related Press that her daughter was in seventh grade when she received her first smartphone. A parental management app helped monitor what she did on-line, however Berbonde had no thought what TikTok actually was. After a number of months, the household realized that the daughter was reducing herself and was affected by anorexia and despair. She spent a 12 months and a half within the hospital however is now 16 and properly.
Macron needs the ban in place for the brand new college 12 months
The laws is among the closing main measures adopted beneath Macron’s presidency earlier than he leaves workplace subsequent 12 months. Macron needs the regulation to take impact in the beginning of the brand new college 12 months in September. Nevertheless, a evaluation to find out whether or not the invoice complies with the French Structure is more likely to happen and will delay its implementation.
“France is main the way in which in Europe in defending our kids and our youngsters,” Macron mentioned. “We’ll carry on going.”
The ban will not cowl on-line encyclopedias, or academic or scientific directories.
Lawmakers from the left-wing social gathering France Unbowed opposed the invoice, arguing that its constitutionality is unclear, that it could successfully finish on-line anonymity, and that it could be unimaginable to implement.
Ines Legendre, a authorized adviser for the web safety group e-Enfance, mentioned the regulation won’t instantly translate into an outright ban.
“We’ll even have to handle the difficulty of present accounts for these beneath 15. How will we establish them? How will we droop them? After which there’s the query of age verification for all new accounts that can come into impact,” she mentioned.
Based on France’s well being watchdog, one in two youngsters spends between two and 5 hours a day on a smartphone. In a report revealed in December, it mentioned that some 90% of youngsters between 12 and 17 use smartphones each day to entry the web, with 58% of them utilizing their units for social networks.
The report highlighted a spread of dangerous results stemming from using social networks, together with lowered vanity and elevated publicity to content material related to dangerous behaviors reminiscent of self-harm, drug use and suicide.
After the European Fee discovered that the newest model of the invoice overlapped with the EU’s Digital Providers Act, which units strict guidelines geared toward retaining web customers secure on-line, lawmakers held closing negotiations Monday. They reached an settlement on an amended model of the laws, which was then submitted to each chambers for a closing vote.
Different international locations implement restrictions
Rising consciousness of the risks social media poses for younger, creating brains has proven up in a wave of recent restrictions globally.
In 2024, Australia grew to become the primary nation to kick children beneath 16 off social media. The regulation makes platforms — together with TikTok, Fb, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram — answerable for fines of as much as 50 million Australian {dollars} ($35 million) in the event that they fail to stop youngsters youthful than 16 from holding accounts.
FILE – Three boys use their telephones whereas sitting exterior a faculty in Sydney, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
Rick Rycroft/AP
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Rick Rycroft/AP
In Europe, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez introduced in February that the nation needs to restrict social media entry for kids beneath 16. Denmark and Greece have unveiled plans for bans for children whereas the UK mentioned it could additionally think about banning younger youngsters.
European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen — the EU’s high govt — earlier this month referred to as for limits to be positioned on youngsters utilizing social media. A particular EU panel trying into the difficulty really useful forbidding entry for these beneath 13 till tech corporations can show their platforms are secure.
Von der Leyen mentioned that youngsters beneath 3 shouldn’t have any publicity to screens in any respect. She famous infinite scrolling as one of many “addictive” traits that tech corporations should deal with. The European Fee is more likely to provide you with a proposal for the 27 member international locations to think about within the close to future.
