Greece proposes social‑media ban for under‑15s
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a proposal to ban social media for children under 15, a high-profile policy example of governments prioritising youth mental health over platform access. The announcement drew public support and has been highlighted as a proactive regulatory approach with potential downstream effects for schools. (x.com)
Greece says children under 15 will be blocked from social media starting January 1, 2027, with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis saying the law will be drafted in summer 2026 and aimed at platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat. (apnews.com) Mitsotakis said the trigger was not one scandal or one app but a pile of harms he linked to heavy use: anxiety, sleep problems and what he called addictive platform design. (whtc.com) The Greek plan is narrower than a full internet ban. It targets services where users create profiles, interact with other people and share content, which is why messaging apps are not automatically in the same bucket. (apnews.com) This did not come out of nowhere. In February, an ALCO opinion poll found about 80 percent of respondents in Greece backed a social media ban for children under 15. (ca.news.yahoo.com) Greece is also trying to push the fight above the national level. Mitsotakis said a Greek law on its own would be weak without a European Union framework, because the biggest platforms operate across all 27 member states. (whtc.com) That is why Athens is asking for a common European “digital age of majority” at 15 and repeated age checks by platforms, instead of a different rule in every country. (courthousenews.com) The European Commission has already built part of the plumbing for that idea. On July 14, 2025, it published guidelines for protecting minors online and a prototype age-verification app under the Digital Services Act, the European Union law for large online platforms. (ec.europa.eu) The Commission says that tool can prove an age threshold without handing over extra personal details, and it can be adapted for ranges like “13 and over,” which is exactly the kind of system a country like Greece would need to make a ban enforceable. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu) Greece is not the first country to move on this. France approved a 2023 law requiring platforms to verify ages and get parental consent for users under 15, and Australia went further with a ban for under-16s that became a model for newer proposals. (france24.com) (apnews.com) The hard part now is not writing the age number into law. It is deciding whether Greece will rely on phone-based age checks, identity documents, platform self-policing, or a European Union tool that still needs wider rollout before January 2027. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu) (ec.europa.eu) If Greece follows through on the current timetable, schools and parents will get eight months of debate in parliament and another half year before the ban takes effect, while the rest of Europe watches whether one country can make age limits on global apps actually stick. (bloomberg.com) (apnews.com)
