Greece moves to restrict kids
Greece is proposing a ban that would bar children under 15 from joining social platforms that allow profiles, interaction and content sharing, signaling a structural limit on youth access rather than just content rules. The law is local but the move is being read as a European signal that audience assumptions can change quickly for fashion, music and youth‑focused marketing categories. (latimes.com)
Greece is moving past warning labels and screen-time advice and into a hard cutoff: Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said children under 15 would be barred from social media starting January 1, 2027. He said the bill will be brought to parliament in mid-2026. (apnews.com) The ban is aimed at platforms that let users build profiles, talk to other users, and post their own material, which puts Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in the target zone. That is a broader rule than just blocking adult content or tightening default settings. (apnews.com) Mitsotakis tied the move to anxiety, sleep problems, and what he called addictive design features built into apps. He announced it in a TikTok video, which underlined how central those platforms have become in everyday life for teenagers. (msn.com) Greece is not acting in a vacuum. France has already passed a law requiring parental consent for users under 15, and Australia passed a law in 2024 setting a minimum age of 16 for social media, with implementation still being worked out. (apnews.com) What makes the Greek plan different is that Athens is openly using a national law to push Brussels. Mitsotakis said he wants the 27-country European Union to formalize age restrictions across the bloc instead of leaving each country to build its own fence. (apnews.com) That European piece matters because the European Commission already published child-safety guidelines under the Digital Services Act on July 14, 2025. Those guidelines tell platforms to make minors’ accounts private by default, turn off features like streaks and autoplay, and use age checks when national law sets a minimum age for certain social media services. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu) So the argument is shifting from “make social media safer for children” to “some children should not be on these services at all.” The Commission’s own guidance leaves room for that move by specifically mentioning age verification when a country sets a legal minimum age. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu) The hardest part is not writing the law but checking ages without forcing every user to hand over sensitive identity documents. The Commission says age assurance tools should be accurate, reliable, non-intrusive, and non-discriminatory, which is a much tougher technical standard than a simple “click here if you are 15” box. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu) If Greece passes the bill on the timetable Mitsotakis gave, platforms would have less than a year between legislation in summer 2026 and enforcement on January 1, 2027. That would turn one country’s child-safety debate into a live test of whether Europe can actually police age gates at scale. (bloomberg.com)
