{"id":5897,"date":"2026-07-22T02:23:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/?p=5897"},"modified":"2026-07-22T02:23:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:23:27","slug":"france-votes-to-ban-under-15s-from-social-media-as-europe-targets-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/2026\/07\/22\/france-votes-to-ban-under-15s-from-social-media-as-europe-targets-big-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"France Votes to Ban Under-15s From Social Media as Europe Targets Big Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

France is moving rapidly to block children under the age of 15 from accessing social media platforms, as lawmakers seek to curb screen addiction and protect youth mental health. On Monday, the country’s National Assembly<\/strong> voted 130 to 21 in favor of the restrictive legislation, which also includes a blanket ban on smartphone use<\/strong> in high schools.<\/p>\n

Supported strongly by President Emmanuel Macron<\/strong>, the French government aims to fast-track the bill through the Senate to ensure it takes effect before the new school year begins in September. The proposed law features specific exemptions for educational and scientific directories, open-source software platforms like GitHub, and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

The legislative push comes amid growing concern over the impact of digital platforms on adolescent development. According to data from France’s national public health agency, approximately 90 percent of French teenagers access the internet daily via mobile devices, with more than half using them to access social media. Furthermore, one in two teenagers spends between two and five hours each day on their phones.<\/p>\n

Macron has framed the initiative as a necessary defense of youth development, stating that France intends to protect children’s brains from American tech platforms and Chinese networks. Proponents of the bill in the National Assembly<\/a> argue that social media is far from harmless, pointing to reduced sleep, declining reading habits, and increased social comparison among young users.<\/p>\n

France’s aggressive timeline could position it ahead of several other European nations currently drafting similar policies. Greece is targeting a ban starting next year, while Spain, Norway, and the United Kingdom are preparing their own legislative frameworks. Both Norway and the UK plan to introduce restrictions for users under 16 into their respective parliaments by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

However, the feasibility of enforcing such bans remains a significant hurdle, as demonstrated by Australia’s pioneering attempt late last year. Recent data indicates that Australia’s restrictions have faced severe compliance issues. An estimated three in five Australians aged 12 to 15 have managed to maintain access to their social media accounts.<\/p>\n

According to reports, major platforms including YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok have largely failed to enforce the age limits, frequently neglecting to request age verification<\/strong>. Many underage users have also bypassed the restrictions using virtual private networks. To counter this loophole, French lawmakers are already considering measures to restrict VPN use<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In response to the widespread evasion, the Australian government doubled its financial penalties for non-compliant tech firms to $99 million. The country’s independent regulator, the eSafety Commissioner<\/a>, is currently conducting investigations into Meta, Google, Snapchat, and TikTok over their failure to block underage users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France is moving rapidly to block children under the age of 15 from accessing social media platforms, as lawmakers seek to curb screen addiction and protect youth mental health. On Monday, the country’s National Assembly voted 130 to 21 in favor of the restrictive legislation, which also includes a blanket ban on smartphone use in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8310,1184,8505,3727,8504,8506],"class_list":["post-5897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-age-verification","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-esafety-commissioner","tag-national-assembly","tag-smartphone-use","tag-vpn-use"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5898,"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions\/5898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}