EU to ban social media for under-13s and limit access for older children

The EU is banning social media for under 13s and limiting older children's access in an attempt to protect youngsters from suffering online harm on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Under proposals contained in the EU KIDS Act, published by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, social media companies are prohibited from accessing pre-teens.

The move follows similar initiatives in Australia, ​Britain, China, India, Turkey and several European Union countries over
concerns about the ‌impact Meta's Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, Google's YouTube and ChatGPT have on children's mental health and safety.

AI latest - follow live

Failure to comply could see firms fined up to 6% of their global annual sales.

Children aged 13 to 15 will be allowed "mini accounts" chaperoned by guardians, with limits on features and the amount of time they can be accessed, and children will only be allowed to open an account of their own after the age of 15.

Between the ages of 15 and 18, platforms will need to design algorithms that are age-appropriate and safe by design, thus reversing the usual burden of proof.

The act imposes a number of obligations for all online services offering social media services, video sharing, online video games, AI companions and chatbots to users below the age of 18, including a ban on addictive features and profiling-based recommender feeds dragging minors into 'rabbit holes' of harmful content.

It also includes prohibiting infinite scroll without stopping points, reward tricks, and push notifications during sleeping hours, as well as unsolicited contact from strangers.

Ms von der Leyen said "many perceive the power of big tech as overwhelming and impossible to roll back. I disagree.

"We do not have to accept addictive features. We do not have to accept children being drawn into ever more extreme content. We do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI-generated sexualised images."

Children, she said, are engaging with "the most sophisticated technologies ever created", which were "never created with their wellbeing in mind".

The plans, which the bloc's 27 members still need to debate and vote on, are likely to bring them into conflict with both the tech firms themselves and US President Donald Trump, a regular critic of Europe's tech regulations.

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok already prohibit anyone under 13 from opening an account, but authorities have accused the companies of failing to keep them off.

Read more:
Instagram acts on suicide concerns
TikTok under investigation over child safety
Why the social media ban could affect everyone

But some experts said the commission was failing to tackle the bigger issue that the industry's core business is based on getting users hooked on scrolling through addictive content while showing them ads.

Simeon de Brouwer, of digital rights group EDRi, said the plan "merely delays young people's exposure to the risks of online harm", adding that platforms will "unavoidably target them as soon as they're a day older than the threshold".

Social media giant Meta Platforms last month agreed to pay up to $18bn (£9.7bn) and add stronger child-safety measures to Facebook and Instagram to resolve a trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by nearly every US state.

(c) Sky News 2026: EU to ban social media for under-13s and limit access for older children