EU Commission Signals Under-13 Social Media Ban After Expert Report

Europe has periodically stepped in to protect minors from emerging mass media—from the 1934 Brussels Convention restricting children in cinema halls to the 1998 U.S. COPPA law that set 13 as the data-collection floor. The new push extends that century-old logic—child labour bans (UK 1847 Ten Hours Act) and mandatory car seat-belts (EU 1970s)—into the algorithmic realm, shifting liability from parents to manufacturers. It reflects two long-term trends: the EU’s drive for digital sovereignty and ‘precautionary innovation’—regulating first, then allowing access—and the gradual hardening of global attitudes toward persuasive design as evidence of teen mental-health fallout mounts. Whether this moment endures depends on enforcement; Australia’s 2025 under-16 ban is already widely evaded, and robust, privacy-preserving age-verification remains unproven. Still, on a 100-year scale, forcing platforms to build with safety proofs could mark the same structural turn that factory safety laws did for the Industrial Age, recasting Big Tech as a regulated utility within Europe’s social contract.