Saturday 07 / February / 2026
Brussels: Days after France’s lawmakers voted on a social media ban for children under the age of 15, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez vowed to protect Spain’s children “from the digital Wild West.”
Hours of scrolling over harmful content is rewiring young brains and causing anxiety and other health hazards, experts say, compelling European governments to act.
“The specific focus on minors is due to the increased risk of long-term harm, since they are still developing cognitively,” Paul O. Richter, affiliate fellow with Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, told DW. “There is a lot of research showing strong correlations between social media usage and mental health issues.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has also expressed support for an EU-wide age limit along the lines of a new Australian law that set an age limit of 16 for social media usage.
Which European countries are mulling a social media ban for children?
In France, the bill that calls for a ban on under-15s will now be sent to the upper house of the French parliament for a vote.
In Spain, the Council of Ministers is expected to approve the ban on under 16s and add the clause to a draft bill under discussion in the Spanish parliament.
“Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone, a space of addiction, abuse, pornography, manipulation [and] violence,” Sanchez said as he announced the proposed ban.
Other European countries are also considering a social media ban on children under 16 or 15 years of age.
In late 2025, Denmark decided to protect children and young people from online abuse and “create a better framework for their digital lives.”
In a multiparty agreement, political groups in Denmark said access to some social media platforms should be banned. A law is yet to go into effect.
Italy has also introduced a bill in the Italian parliament to impose social media restrictions, including on child influencers, under the age of 15.
According to a senior official who spoke to news agency Reuters, Greece is “very close” to imposing a similar ban.
This week, Portugal submitted legislation that calls for parental consent for children under 16 to access social media content.
Austria is also contemplating a social media ban, while the United Kingdom has started a consultation process on the subject.
Meanwhile, European parliamentarians in November recommended a Europe-wide social media ban on children under 16, while also suggesting that 13- to 16-year-olds could be granted access with parental consent.
An EU-wide digital ID to check age?
One idea being discussed for age-verification is an EU-wide digital ID. Richter, the affiliate fellow with Bruegel, said an EU Digital ID is envisaged as a tool that would verify the user’s age without compromising personal details.
“It would allow people to digitally verify that they are above a certain age without the need to share any extra personal data such as exact birth date, name, address or ID number. This would facilitate the implementation of a digital age restriction,” Richter said.
But Marc Damie, spokesperson of France’s ctrl+alt+reclaim ― a youth-led tech justice and digital rights movement ― claimed that details about how age verification apps or IDs would work, and whether private information would be safe, are unclear.
“Such bans will backfire,” he said. “We agree there is a problem, social media is causing mental health issues, but such a ban,” he claimed, was just a symbolic measure on the part of politicians rather than an actual solution.
Expert: Social media ban wouldn’t alleviate ‘structural problems’
“It doesn’t solve structural problems” on social media platforms, said Damie.
He pointed to platform practices such as autoplay ― which forces unwanted and unexpected audio and video content upon users ― and anxiety-inducing infinite scrolling, intended to keep the users hooked online, as major issues.
Damie also objected to the age limit because “addiction doesn’t stop at 15 or 16.”
Richter agreed that lack of sufficient research makes it difficult to definitively argue for a specific age as the optimal cutoff.
“Some of the potential risks relate specifically to the effect social comparison from social media has on adolescent and teenage girls,” he said. “Therefore, a higher age cutoff could be justified.”
Only EU can push online platforms to make systematic changes
The European Union has backed a digital age of majority, but cautioned member states against stepping on the EU’s flagship Digital Services Act (DSA) that requires tech companies to mitigate risk related to algorithms and impact on minors.
“The DSA and the EU Commission are the only entities that can impose additional obligations on very large platforms,” Thomas Regnier, the Commission’s spokesperson for tech, told journalists.
Richter said member states are simply frustrated and don’t think the EU is able to effectively impose its laws on foreign tech companies, mostly those in the US.
“The DSA requires very large online platforms like popular social media [sites] to... change algorithms and platform design to mitigate systemic risks, including those to minors,” Richter said. “It also requires them to share data with researchers to allow for independent research on risks.
“In practice, this has not meaningfully occurred. [That’s why] more restrictive proposals, including social media bans, have gained more support,” he added.
Earlier this week, Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, labelled Spain’s prime minister “a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain,” after the latter announced his plans to ban social media for children.
Musk has tried to paint European regulations on creating safe online spaces as a ruse to impede freedom of speech online.
Damie said it was time that EU countries “jointly invested in European alternatives” to non-European social media platforms.
“We are a hostage of big US companies,” he said. “[It’s] either them or no digital life,” he said.
That idea is being discussed among experts in the hope that a European platform would comply better with EU regulations and values.
