The EU is set to ban under-15s from social media, AI chatbots, and online games entirely

[Walter_Vet]

The European Commission is set to unveil the EU Kids Act on Thursday, and the leaked draft is genuinely sweeping in scope, banning children under 13 from social media entirely, restricting those aged 13 to 15 to accounts fully controlled by parents with access limited to just one hour a day, and requiring platforms to design their services safely by default for teenagers aged 15 to 18. Commission president Ursula von der Leyen framed the proposal in unusually blunt terms, saying Europe has the power to act, it is we who decide our rules, not big tech, and specifically that we do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI generated sexualised images.

What makes this genuinely notable is just how far the scope extends beyond traditional social media platforms. According to the leaked draft seen by Computer Weekly, the rules also cover video sharing platforms, AI chatbots, and online games, with obligations varying depending on both the specific type of service and the age of the user in question, meaning a video game marketplace and a chatbot end up facing genuinely different compliance checklists rather than one identical blanket rule. Companies will also be required to pay a supervisory fee specifically to help fund regulators' own enforcement capacity, addressing a longstanding complaint that European regulators have had plenty of legal authority but never quite enough actual enforcement funding to properly use it.

The timing reflects mounting pressure from individual member states rather than Brussels acting entirely alone, with Italy, France, Norway, Greece, Austria, Poland, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands all separately considering or actively advancing their own national social media restrictions, following Australia's world first ban in December 2025 and the UK's own announced under-16s restriction back in June. France notably had to submit a reworked version of its own earlier national ban after the country's Constitutional Council struck down the original legislation in mid August for constituting an unnecessary infringement on freedom of expression.

Not everyone is convinced this is the right overall approach though. James Baker of the Open Rights Group told Computer Weekly the drafts extend online ID checks well beyond just social media, into app stores, games, and other services more broadly, warning that this changes the fundamental open nature of the internet into something closer to a permission based system rather than the more open access model people are used to

Tech companies under fire as Europe proposes social media ban for under-15s | Computer Weeklywww.computerweekly.com