Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced a ban on social media use for teens under the age of 15.
In his message, broadcast on his social media accounts, Mitsotakis expressed his concerns over digital addiction and its detrimental impact on adolescent mental health. He also announced that legislation for the ban will be finalized over the summer of 2026, and will take full effect on January 1, 2027.
In the presentation that followed the Prime Minister’s announcement, Greek Minister of State Akis Skertsos, Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis and Minister of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence Dimitris Papastergiou gave further details on the Greek government’s ban.
The ban targets social media platforms that implement infinite scrolling and public content sharing, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. However, it does not apply to messaging and video platforms such as Viber, WhatsApp and YouTube.
During the presentation, Skertsos stated that the algorithms of these platforms can be addictive for children and young adults, and thus must be regulated. He emphasized that this ban is part of a broader Greek government strategy to protect minors.
During his own presentation, Georgiadis presented alarming statistics showing that 20% of 15-year-olds neglect important activities such as athletics, hobbies because of social media use, while 23% feel nervous or insecure when they don’t have access to their phone.
A further 36% of teens prefer to contact their friends via social media, and 11% exhibit problematic behavior on social media. Additionally, 25-30% of teens are victims or perpetrators of cyberbullying, 14.7% have been involved in sexting, and 34.7% have reported being in contact with strangers.
In his presentation, Papastergiou explained that social media platforms are obligated to verify the age of account holders. In case they need assistance, they can ask for confirmation via QR code scanned by the Greek government’s Gov.gr Wallet and Kids Wallet apps. These apps will confirm to platforms that the user is over 15 without transferring any personal data.
Papastergiou also issued a warning to platforms failing to comply, stating they face fines of up to 6% of their global turnover.
