EU Kids Act targets under-13s on social media

The EU Kids Act would bar under-13s from social media and impose child-safe account rules on platforms, setting up a fight over enforcement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the proposal on Thursday, putting age limits and platform design at the center of the European Union's child safety agenda. The plan still needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament before it can become law.

Under-13 ban anchors plan

The proposal would prohibit children below 13 from using social media, while accounts for children aged 13 to 15 would be placed under parental control, according to von der Leyen. The structure would give regulators a clearer age ladder than the current patchwork of national rules across the bloc.

Von der Leyen framed the measure as a digital equivalent of offline protections for minors. “Today, our children are engaging with some of the most sophisticated technology ever created, and it was not created with children's well-being and development in mind,” she told a press conference.

She said the proposed law “will set clear boundaries in the digital world just as we do it on a daily basis in the real world.” That language points to a broader policy shift: Brussels is no longer treating child online safety mainly as a content moderation issue, but as a product-design problem.

Platforms face design duties

The draft would apply to social media and video-sharing services, online video games, AI companions and chatbots used by people below 18. That puts Meta's Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, Google's YouTube and ChatGPT among the services likely to face closer scrutiny if the law advances.

The Commission's plan includes bans on addictive features, profiling-based recommender feeds, infinite scroll, reward mechanics and unsolicited contact from strangers. AI companions and chatbots aimed at children would have to be switched off by default, according to the proposal described by von der Leyen.

Platforms would also be required to build algorithms considered safe for children and provide parental controls that are easy to use. The plan calls for tools that let users block and mute others, a provision aimed at reducing direct exposure to harassment or unwanted contact.

For Meta, Google and TikTok, the direct pressure would fall on account systems, recommendation engines and age-assurance tools. If the rules survive negotiations in a strict form, companies would need to redesign child-facing settings rather than rely only on warnings, reporting channels or parental education campaigns.

Australia shows enforcement strain

The EU effort follows age-restriction and child-protection initiatives in Australia, Britain, China, India, Turkey and several EU countries. Australia has moved furthest with a social media ban for children under 16, but its enforcement difficulties offer a warning for Brussels.

The main practical issue is age verification. A rule that depends on identifying whether a user is 12, 13 or 15 needs systems that can distinguish children from adults without creating new privacy risks or excluding legitimate users.

If Europe adopts a hard ban with strict verification, the global macro effect would likely be limited in the short term but meaningful for digital regulation: large platforms could face higher compliance costs across a market of 27 EU countries. For Meta and Google, the mechanism would be added spending on account controls and safer recommendation systems; for the wider industry, smaller platforms could struggle more with the same compliance burden.

If lawmakers dilute the proposal during negotiations, the immediate cost for major platforms would fall, but Brussels would leave more responsibility with companies and parents. In that scenario, the sector would face less disruption, while the EU's broader digital policy push would depend more on enforcement under existing online safety rules.

If enforcement proves difficult, as Australia's experience suggests it could, the law's effect would depend on whether regulators can test platform systems and impose penalties. The open question is whether the EU can design age checks that are reliable enough for minors, acceptable to privacy authorities and workable for companies whose services operate across borders.