EU Targets Infinite Scroll and AI Chatbots in Sweeping Kids Act

BRUSSELS — The proposed EU Kids Act would require social media platforms to verify users’ ages whenever new accounts are created, while applying “reasonable proxies,” including commercial signals such as credit card verification, to estimate the ages of people already using their services.

The European Union is advancing the initiative across its 27 member states to dismantle engagement features used by major social media platforms and shift legal liability for young users’ online safety onto technology companies. If adopted, the measure would affect a bloc of roughly 450 million citizens and become the most far-reaching regulatory intervention targeting minor social media access globally.

Under the proposed framework, children under 13 would be barred from opening standard social media accounts. They could use designated “mini accounts” on child-friendly video-sharing platforms, but those accounts would have to be created and managed by a parent or legal guardian.

The same accounts would include direct parental controls over accessible media and a mandatory screen-time limit capped at one hour per day. For minors aged 13 and 14, access to age-appropriate social media and video-sharing platforms would be allowed only through parental sub-accounts.

Those sub-accounts would be configured with default safety safeguards, including restricted social-contact options that block interaction with strangers. They would also carry a mandatory maximum of one hour of screen time per day. Adolescents aged 15 and older would gain the independent right to create and manage their own social media accounts, without mandatory parental supervision or system-enforced daily time limits.

The draft would prohibit platforms from using recommendation algorithms that direct minor users into continuous automated content loops, often described as content “rabbit holes.” It would also require the removal of infinite-scroll designs that refresh feeds continuously without natural stopping points.

Push notifications sent during nighttime hours and unsolicited direct messaging from unknown accounts would likewise be prohibited. Conversational artificial intelligence tools built into social platforms would have to remain turned off by default for minors, and companies could not program AI systems in ways that foster emotional dependency among young users.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen referred to growing clinical research on children’s digital-media consumption when introducing the proposal. “Today, there is a robust body of evidence on the harm that social media does to a developing brain and personality, and too well parents see the effects of this,” Von der Leyen said in a statement. “To be very clear, an age limit does not mean letting tech companies off the hook for the content of the platform. Platforms have been playing fast and loose with our children’s mental health. Now we are reversing the burden of proof.”

The proposal directs companies toward privacy-preserving digital identity tools, including the European Union’s age verification application developed under the broader EU Digital Identity framework. To protect data privacy, technology companies would be prohibited from retaining official identity documents or biometric data collected during age checks.

The technical and legal overlap has drawn criticism from industry representatives. Bernhard Rohleder, chief executive officer of Germany’s IT industry association BITKOM, said, “Age verification remains a technical challenge, and parallel regulation to existing laws like the Digital Services Act is problematic and unnecessary.” Major digital platforms, including Meta Platforms Inc.—the parent company of Instagram and Facebook—have not issued formal statements on the proposal.

Enforcement would be incorporated into the European Union’s existing Digital Services Act compliance structure. The DSA took full effect for all covered entities in February 2024, and the proposed law would require digital service providers to submit explicit plans detailing their technical safeguards.

European regulators would receive a fast-track mechanism allowing compliance actions within a 90-day window. Penalties would follow the DSA framework, which permits fines of up to 6 percent of an entity’s total global annual turnover.

The European Commission has called for swift adoption by EU member states and the European Parliament. Similar initiatives have faced legal obstacles at the national level: French courts previously halted domestic legislation intended to restrict minors’ social media access, ruling that blanket bans impermissibly infringed constitutional protections for freedom of expression.

The proposal arrives during a wider global move toward child digital protection. Australia passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act in November 2024, establishing a national age limit of 16 for social media accounts.

In the United States, California, Utah, Arkansas and several other states have enacted youth online safety statutes, although multiple laws remain subject to court injunctions over First Amendment concerns. The U.S. Senate passed the federal Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) in July 2024; the measure seeks to establish a statutory duty of care for online platforms accessed by minors.