EU will seek to limit children's access to social media

https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2026/0713/1583074-eu-social-media/

by austinallegro • 10 days ago

16 31 10 days ago

daveyyyy• 10 days ago

This feels strange. Social media is already a central part of modern life

How is it strange? As far as I know, there's quite some research on negative impact of social media on teens mental health. How is restricting access to specific age groups fundamentally different from restricting access to cigarettes or alcohol?

alexgoodhart• 10 days ago

Because speech and communication obviously. That’s a ridiculous comparison.

I am very much not a pro-social media person (this is a social media website, btw) but I am even less a nanny state person. EU loses plenty of support from the citizens of its constituent states when it implements these sorts of limitations, so I hope the benefits meaningfully improve quality of life.

Also, research is not a prescriptive cure, and it isn’t a neutral domain. It is valuable, but not as an unevaluated rubber stamp.

bushwart• 10 days ago

You don't need to show your government ID to enter a supermarket.

Chu4eeno• 10 days ago

Didn't the testifying UK academics explicitly say the current research was inconclusive?

mdp20217• 9 days ago

How is restricting access to specific age groups fundamentally different from restricting access to cigarettes or alcohol?

Restricting access to the latter does not impact privacy.

_aavaa_• 10 days ago

So was alcohol.

The problem is doing it in a way that doesn’t removal all privacy.

bureaucrap• 10 days ago

The last generation with access to social media.

Only government opinion channels are allowed.

movedx012• 10 days ago

Why not restrict the addictive design of the algorithms instead? No need to blanket ban social media access if the social media cannot optimize to steal every last inch of their attention. Anything on the feed becomes opt-in only and no engagement data coming from the user or from the outside can be used to optimize it, thats it. Control is back in the hands of the content consumer, parental restrictions become trivial, no black box algorithm deciding what bubbles up and what gets buried deep down.

emsign• 10 days ago

Because Meta lobbyied massively for this version of the law. So they keep their addictive apps as they are.

sunshine-o2• 10 days ago

Sure but we still face the same problem: define "social media" or "addictive design of the algorithms"

HN has almost all of the features of a "social media" and a good algorithm. If you visit HN every day it is by definition addictive.

So the EU could ask for it to be age gated or blocked. This is not a simple problem and we are opening the Pandora box here.

movedx012• 10 days ago

"addictive design of the algorithms"

Any self improving loop where the user is not in control, thats it.

If I subscribe to A and get more of A - thats fine.

If the algorithm detects that I spend 0.5 second longer on average looking at content with feature A and so decides to show me more of A - thats bad. At most it might be allowed to ask me if I want to subscribe to more of things with explicitly defined feature A, but even that assumes we are fine with collection of behavioural data like this in the first place and so it is a stretch already.

Transparency and control is what makes the difference here in my opinion.

mdp20217• 9 days ago

If you visit HN every day it is by definition addictive
addictive

"_useful_", for f.'sake, the term is 'useful'.

goobatrooba• 10 days ago

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand it clearly is necessary - we expect parents to do this but most are obviously failing (and I say this being a parent myself). Look what any 13 year old is doing on their phone or what disgusting horrors they encounter on the abyss of tiktok or Roblox.

On the other hand the means available to block access are too crude and seem to impinge on everyone's privacy. A shopkeeper checking the age to sell alcohol can look at your face, but an app cannot - so the solutions all seem to resort to quite invasive age checks.

I saw this related EU initiative a few weeks ago (also on HN) which seems to try to find a middle ground where you have to authorise ones and then can simply prove you are 18 without revealing any private info, but I do wonder how this holds up in practice - will the most-in-need-of-protection kids not simply get an adult to do a one-off signup for them?

https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/04/30/what-to-know-about-...

wtfHN26• 10 days ago

A shopkeeper checking the age to sell alcohol can look at your face, but an app cannot - so the solutions all seem to resort to quite invasive age checks.

Don't give them ideas for scanning your face to check content.

vrighter• 10 days ago

didn't some platforms already do this?

mdp20217• 9 days ago

Europeans will soon be able to use a new app to prove their age when accessing online platforms [...] The app is also open source

"app": is it clear to them that some of us will not have smartphones?

"open source": this is the only reassuring part.

muteor• 10 days ago

It’s all stupid, they said the same things about radio, rock music, heavy metal, mtv, tv, books etc.

The research they quote is not conclusive and probably paid for by the age verification groups.

So it is either mass hysteria or a conspiracy.

unicornops• 10 days ago

I've noticed the first few comments on here are not ok with social media access being restricted based on age. I can't say it sits well with me either both as a parent and as someone who spent a bunch of those early years on IRC. I get that current social media isn't like IRC/Usenet but...we do need something that is.

I think it would be better to instruct what the kids can and cannot see in social media rather than this age based blanket ban. In the same way we have with movies and video games we could have age ratings and then give the parents control over what child account can see what content and define how the algorithms get to work for specific age groups.

I expect we are going to see swings one way and another in the following years.

MyMemoryfails• 9 days ago

I wonder why they're spreading this message. EU just went after Meta and Tiktok for the addictive design.

Why not wait the results of this? They allowed children get brainfucked for 9+ years. Whats one or two more years? If we need do something now just ban phones from schools, this had excellent results all over countries.

Then let's see if the harms still exceeds positives. Since seriously internet contains so much rich information and educative content. Not mention lots safe places for LGBTQ, which is being age gated behind 18+ for some reason. You cant even buy a flag without age verification. It's absurd.

EU will seek to limit children's access to social media

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