Netherlands latest European country to mull social media ban for children

The new Dutch minority government is pushing to raise the minimum age to access social media in Europe to 15, documents released Friday show.

The Dutch push is the latest move to ban social media for children in Europe, where French lawmakers recently greenlit a bill barring children under 15 from social media. That bill will take effect in September.

A week earlier, on January 19, the British government announced it is considering banning social media for children under age 16 with Prime Minister Keir Starmer writing that “being a child should not be about constant judgement from strangers or the pressure to perform for likes.” 

The three Dutch parties behind the recently unveiled proposal still need to build a wider coalition for a law to pass since they hold slightly less than half the seats in the Dutch parliament.

They are seeking an “enforceable European minimum age of 15 for social media, with privacy-friendly age verification for young people.”

“Stricter oversight of large online platforms will be introduced, with obligations to be transparent about algorithms and revenue, and with effective moderation of illegal content,” the coalition’s plans say. “In today's online world, addictive algorithms, harmful content, and inadequate moderation pose risks such as addiction, intimidation, abuse, and fraud.”

The coalition says it would ban “addictive, polarizing, and anti-democratic algorithms” and require “punishable” content to be removed within an hour of an order from regulators.

The plans also call for published guidance to warn parents about the perils of too much screen time and requirements that smartphones be kept out of schools.

Australia was the first country to bar children from social media. That ban went into effect in December and by January 16 social media companies had deactivated about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children.