Factbox-From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children’s social media access | #childpredator | #onlinepredator | #sextrafficing

ITALY

Children under 14 need ⁠parental consent to sign up for social media accounts, while no consent is required above that age.

MALAYSIA

Malaysia has begun barring those under 16 from registering accounts on social media platforms, its communications regulator said on June 1.

NORWAY

The Norwegian government in 2024 proposed raising the age at which children can consent to the terms required to use social media to 15 from 13, although parents would still be permitted to sign off on their behalf if they are under the age limit.

The government has also begun work on legislation to set an absolute minimum age limit of 15 ​for ​social media use.

POLAND

Poland’s ruling party is preparing new legislation to ban social media for children under 15 and to hold platforms responsible for age ​verification, it said on February 27.

SLOVENIA

Slovenia is drafting a law that would prohibit children under 15 from ‌accessing social media, Deputy Prime Minister Matej Arcon said on February 6.

SPAIN

Spain will push ahead with new rules to make social networks and AI safer despite intense lobbying from the tech industry, Digital Transformation Minister Oscar Lopez told Reuters in May.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had said in February that Spain would ban access to social media for minors under 16, with platforms required to implement age verification systems.

SWEDEN

Sweden should introduce a minimum age of 15 for the use of social media, a government-appointed commission recommended on June 2.

A ban can be formulated in a way that the platforms would be responsible for age verification, investigator Lisa Englund Krafft told a news conference with Social Affairs and Public Health Minister Jakob Forssmed.

TURKEY

Turkey’s parliament on April 24 passed legislation banning the use of social media by children under 15 and introducing new rules for digital platforms, including game software companies.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The United Arab Emirates on June 18 approved a resolution setting the minimum age for social media use at 15, the government’s media office said, making ‌it the first Arab country to introduce such a measure.

The resolution prohibits children under 15 from creating or using personal social media accounts and restricts ​their access to the platforms’ full features.

UNITED STATES

U.S. legislation aimed at forcing social media companies to do more to protect children and teenagers cleared a key ​political hurdle after Republican Senator Ted Cruz said on May 12 he would support the bill.

Cruz said at an ​event in Washington that he would back the Kids Online Safety Act, which would require social media companies to “exercise reasonable care” in designing features that contribute to harm to minors, according to the bill.

The legislation ‌is separate from the long-standing Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which prevents companies from collecting ​personal data from children under 13 without parental consent. Several states have ​passed laws requiring parental consent for minors to access social media, but they have faced court challenges on free speech grounds.

EU LEGISLATION

On May 12, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union would seek stronger protections for children from harmful social media features.

Von der Leyen said the Commission would target “addictive and harmful design practices” in its Digital Fairness Act, a planned law due to be proposed later this year, while an expert panel prepares advice on ​how to proceed.

The European Parliament in November agreed on a resolution calling for an EU-wide ban ‌on access for children under 16 to online platforms, video-sharing sites and AI companions without parental consent and an outright ban for those younger than 13.

TECH INDUSTRY

Social media platforms including TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat say people ​need to be at least 13 to sign up.

Child protection advocates say the controls are insufficient, and official data in several European countries shows huge numbers of children under 13 have social media accounts.

(Compiled by Christine ​Chen in Sydney, Canan Sevgili, Hugo Lhomedet, Paolo Laudani and Lucie Barbier in Gdansk Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak, Bernadette Baum and Matt Scuffham)