Stricter child social-media rules

Massachusetts just moved a social-media bill through its House by a 129-25 vote, and the rule is blunt: children under 14 could not hold accounts, while 14- and 15-year-olds would need a parent’s permission. The same package also pushes public schools to adopt phone-free policies by fall 2026. (wgbh.org) (wcvb.com) Greece went further on age and timing: Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said children under 15 will be barred from social media starting January 1, 2027, after the government said the rules should be in place by the summer of 2026. He tied the plan to anxiety, sleep loss, and what he called addictive platform design. (yahoo.com) (news.bloomberglaw.com) These laws are aimed at the same machine: feeds that decide what a child sees next, one swipe at a time, and keep serving more of it. Massachusetts’ bill is literally titled “An Act protecting children from addictive social media feeds.” (malegislature.gov) The Massachusetts version does not stop at age gates. The House text says platforms must prohibit accounts for under-14 users, get parental consent for ages 14 and 15, and treat social-media access more like a restricted product than a default service. (malegislature.gov) (bostonglobe.com) Greece is also trying to turn a national rule into a continental one. Mitsotakis called for a common European “digital age of majority,” which would push the European Union toward a shared age-verification standard instead of 27 separate systems. (courthousenews.com) (nytimes.com) That matters because age limits are only as strong as the ID check behind them. Greece has already been testing a state app called Kids Wallet, and the new plan leans on more frequent age verification by platforms that use endless-scroll features. (bbc.com) (courthousenews.com) At the same time, lawmakers are widening the target from what children watch to how children are used online. In Colorado, House Bill 26-1058 has passed both chambers and is headed to the governor after requiring parents who profit from a child’s online appearances to put part of that money into a trust. (9news.com) (leg.colorado.gov) Colorado’s bill borrows the logic long used for child actors and applies it to family vlogs and sponsored posts. The bill summary says a minor counts as doing content-creation work when the child appears heavily in monetized content and the creator earns at least $40,000 from it over a year. (leg.colorado.gov) The bill also gives those children a future exit door. Once they are adults, or emancipated minors, they can demand deletion of posts that identified them as children, and the creator must comply within 72 hours. (leg.colorado.gov) Put together, these moves show governments drawing a new line around childhood online. One set of rules says some kids should not be in the feed at all, and the other says that if a child is the product on screen, the money and the control cannot belong only to the adults. (wgbh.org) (news.bloomberglaw.com) (leg.colorado.gov)