The European Union wants to stop kids under 15 from using social media, chatbots, and online games. The proposal comes from the EU Kids Act, announced Sept. 17 by Ursula von der Leyen and Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s executive branch. It is a draft, and it is controversial.
What the Act Proposes
The plan splits childhood into three stages:
- Under 3: no access to any services
- 3-12: accounts allowed only on child-friendly services, fully controlled by parents, with strict safety rules including limited user-to-user contact and time limits
- 13-14: kids can ask parents for special introductory accounts on social media and video-sharing platforms, again with limited user-to-user contact and time limits
- Once a child hits 15: full access to social media, chatbots, and gaming with only usual restrictions on adult content
The Official Line
The EU’s own document says the approach should let minors “benefit from the huge potential of digital services” while protecting them from abuse and exploitation. It also says the act “needs to limit the access of tech companies to our children, and not the other way around.”
What Companies Pay
Companies would pay a “supervisory fee” to fund regulators’ enforcement and post-implementation supervision. They would also have to remove features designed to keep users glued to the screen, and add age verification for new accounts and downloads.
What Comes Next
Further drafts with EU member countries and the European Parliament will follow before final terms are agreed. The proposal is a draft, and it could change.
Who Decides Child-Friendly
The act does not define what a child-friendly service is. That leaves room for interpretation, and the paper wonders who gets to decide.
Digital Rights Pushback
Digital rights advocates have expressed concerns that increasingly rigorous regulations might be weaponized to target marginalized populations and adult creators and consumers of adult content.
Industry Response So Far
Virtually every platform has added more parental controls, and destinations like Roblox and Discord have implemented age verification. Whether they support this draft remains unclear.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs narrow rules against direct harm, such as forcing companies to disclose safety failures they hid, and is against broad rules that hand the market to the incumbents, which means it backs the small business against both the agency and the giant here, even as it notes the danger is big tech dominance, not the technology itself. The proposal asks companies to pay fees, remove engagement features, and enforce age verification, all without defining what “child-friendly” means. Those undefined standards give regulators wide room to judge platforms and set rules, and the paper sees that as a problem for the smaller firms that cannot afford the same scrutiny as the giants.
The EU’s own document says the act “needs to limit the access of tech companies to our children, and not the other way around.” Yet the act itself leaves the definition of “child-friendly” open. That gap gives regulators wide leeway to judge platforms and set rules, and the paper suspects that discretion will favor the biggest companies rather than the smallest ones.
The reader should watch how the EU defines “child-friendly” once the proposal moves past its draft stage. The paper wants the definition kept narrow, so it applies only to real harms rather than becoming a standard that locks out smaller competitors. The proposal’s own language warns against giving tech companies access to children, but it offers no guard against giving regulators too much power over who gets to serve them.
Key Facts at a Glance
| Stage | Age | Allowed Services |
|---|---|---|
| Under 3 | Under 3 | None |
| Younger Childhood | 3-12 | Child-friendly accounts, parent-controlled |
| Older Childhood | 13-14 | Introductory accounts on request |
| Adult | 15+ | Full access |
The EU is asking tech companies to cut off service to children below 15 entirely. Companies pay a fee to fund the regulation. Who decides what counts as “child-friendly” services? The proposal does not say, and the paper suspects the answer will matter more than anyone admits.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.