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France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s
- dyauspitr 9mo agoGood. We need more of these laws with more teeth.
- ekianjo 9mo agoif they need age verification they will ask for everyone's ID, that is why they are doing that in the first place.
- barrenko 9mo agoI was happy enough to use Vimeo for several years, then made an account to be able to watch videos all of a sudden, and just recently when I logged in they've asked me to also verify (?) my identity with an ID. Yeah, not doing that.
- energy123 9mo agoThey're doing this because it's bad for teen mental health, and polls keep showing 70% support and 15% opposition.
- softg 9mo agoWhy just teens though? Getting manipulated by algorithms crafted to maximize screentime and ad revenue is bad for anyone. These platforms rely on ads to survive. Which means it should be easy to regulate them. You can prevent them from selling ads at which point they will be forced to comply. If they don't, someone else will get the ad revenue. Europe is already hostile towards american tech giants anyways. The possibilities are endless. Pass a law that forces all social media with more than x users to not implement constant scrolling, make their ranking algorithm open source, allow people to use their own algorithms, employ robust moderation etc. Instead we have a blanket ban that requires id checks but leaves the manipulation machine intact so it can prey on adults. Mental health is not the real issue here. They want to be able to track people and destroy anonimity online. Children are a convenient excuse.
- asterix_pano 9mo agoBecause the effects are much worse on developing brains.
- energy123 9mo agoI share your vision about what ideal regulation looks like. I don't share your cynicism pertaining to motives. Well, I am cynical about it, but in a non-conspiratorial way. Politicians are feckless trend followers, cowardly in their disposition, preferring to follow the path of least resistance, and they lack any substantial vision or imagination themselves. That explains why nothing bold is happening. And that lack of boldness is not unique to social media regulation. That puts me squarely in the "this isn't perfect, but it's a good step" camp.
- Otterly99 9mo agoProbably because: - Banning things for non-adults is easier, they don't vote. - In the eyes of the law, social media is now seen as cigarettes and alcohol. Something teenagers should not be allowed to have access to, but is fair game once you are adult. I don't fully agree with the ban for the same reasons you cited, but knowing that social media companies (mostly facebook and youtube) have known for years that their platform have been used for spreading radicalization (source: the book "The chaos machine") and have dodged any accountability, maybe it is a good solution after all, it is hard to say...
- hcfman 9mo agoDespot governments are also harmful for teen mental health but we don't see those being banned.
- ekianjo 9mo agoYeah and all internet surveillance is to catch terrorists and pedophiles. Of course almost every action can be justified by some positives, but let's not pretend it is what it is. Getting an ID behind every username has a lot more benefits than protecting a shrinking population that does not vote.
- dyauspitr 9mo agoProbably for the best. Everyone is going to be very aware of what they’re putting online.
- usr1106 9mo agoNot yet passed, waiting for senate approval.
- ekianjo 9mo agoSenate just stamps whatever comes on their desk in France
- bambax 9mo agoNot exactly. They don't have the final say, so if they disagree with something, they can (and will) be overruled. But they don't "stamp" things and aren't otherwise made to approve what they don't like.
- ekianjo 9mo agoHave they been opposed to anything remotely meaningful in recent history?
- krainboltgreene 9mo agoThis kind of legislation is frankly just bad. Any TV station in america could have broadcasted the worst things in the world to thousands of people affecting their lives together. You know how we handled that? Legislation on the broadcasters. We didn't stop kids from watching TV.
- nixass 9mo agoOh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far? Exactly.. They will use any trick or loophole available to keep the reach and to exploit attention spans. Kids brains aren't correct really made for social media whatsoever. Ban is justified and the bar should be even higher than 15 years old, but it's a start. I have a young baby and no way it touches anything smartphone related for many many years, same goes with TV to a certain extent (these things are like smartphones nowadays with all the apps and programme fighting for your attention and to enrage you). I am doing my part, I for sure expect the government does their thing as well. Exploitators should stay in check and at bay with any means necessary
- krainboltgreene 9mo ago> Oh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far? This feels like you intended to make it a gotcha question, but the answer is: America isn't really trying to do that at all. So we should just give up? "Damn, handling biowaste is hard and dangerous, what we'll do is just prevent people from leaving their house."
- nixass 9mo agoI'm not in America nor would I rely on their legislators doing anything about it, especially with current admin. France, Australia and the likes (who are in process of implementing banning social media for kids) is the only way behemots will understand. Otherwise you're risking loopholes beig exploited, bureaucracy being slow while behemots move fast, etc. Ban is pretty much self explanatory and leaves little room for interpretation, at least not in a way where 100s of pages of moderation guidelines and potential ambiguity such docs create
- SilverElfin 9mo agoViolation of privacy under the pretense of protecting children
- ifh-hn 9mo agoI can't read the article because cloud flare won't let me, but how is this ban a violation of privacy? From my knowledge of social media it would likely increase the privacy of those not using these platforms.
- SeanAnderson 9mo agoI think the privacy concern is how to prove you're of age without needing to hand over a government ID.
- ifh-hn 9mo agoOh ok, like the porn ban in the UK. Then if the age verification is in the hands of these companies that is bad. There's nothing they'd like more than knowing exactly who you are.
- vasco 9mo agoBecause under the guise of protecting children you now require the ID of everyone. And the service list will expand. Can't wait to have to swipe my ID to even start Chrome.
- ale42 9mo agoSwitzerland created a digital ID platform (see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45407657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45407657), that has been open sourced, and that would allow people to prove for example their age without revealing any other personal details. It's maybe not the perfect solution, but I find this highly preferable to sharing my ID with some social media platform.
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- mary-ext 9mo agoI've noticed that there's a decent amount of people who had benefitted having access to computer and internet really early on that seemed to be pro on banning teen access to social media, is there a reason why? the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day if algorithmic amplification is the reason then I'm not sure why social media as a whole has to be banned over it.
- voidfunc 9mo agoSocial media is the rock amd roll of its time. Every generation has to have a panic about the children.
- yieldcrv 9mo agoI consider it more like an opium crisis of the time Where the whole population is addicted and governors risk their political career to ban the addiction, and then get their territory invaded by the corporations they kicked out who have returned with a foreign military and mercenary army, to push the addiction back on the populace
- DarkWiiPlayer 9mo agoCyberpunk meets opium wars... Actually sounds like a not so bad setting for a book/game/movie ngl; sure sounds like a garbage setting for a world to actually live in.
- heavyset_go 9mo agoAll of the big "social media" companies support this type of legislation. No one is risking their political career doing exactly what tech companies want lol
- fyrn_ 9mo ago... No offense, but have you ever actually _used_ Tiktok? This take is incredibly out of touch. Tiktok is to early forums like meth is to black tea.
- King-Aaron 9mo agoI don't like the idea of centralised digital ID for the obvious surveillance/privacy arguments and think that side of the conversation needs to be focused on. BUT, I also think that the Social Media experiment has shown that social media in general really, really sucks. It sucks for adults but it's objectively damaging to kids. So like, I am all for restricting kids from it, and honestly I'd happily see it regulated out of existence entirely.
- logicchains 9mo agoSocial media is objectively damaging to the interests of the ruling class, who have been objectively damaging to western civilization during the past decades in which they had near-complete control over the flow of information. It'd be batshit crazy to go back to the times when information flow was centralized in the hands of a few corporations, just because a some neurotics can't handle the increased flow of information from decentralized media.
- MrToadMan 9mo agoIsn’t the information flow being controlled by the few major social media players another form of centralisation where their algorithms decide which decentralised voices are heard?
- forty 9mo ago> Social media is objectively damaging to the interests of the ruling class, Maybe double check who owns and controls most social media platforms, and then think a bit if you'd categorize them more in the ruling class or working class.
- kakacik 9mo agoThats not argument for anything in this topic. The choice was never binary and it seems you don't understand the discussion. That illuminati mumbo jumbo part doesn't deserve a comment.
- mattmark 9mo agoI’d like good social media regulated into existence. Let people take their data, move to a different service, set up redirects, have some meaningful ways to customize or reject algorithms, etc. I don’t think it’s likely to happen but one can hope.
- bandrami 9mo agoIt's a good start. Ban it for all under 30s and over 60s.
- trvz 9mo agoThat’s a little harsh. Under 25 and over 75 would be more appropriate.
- bandrami 9mo agoThat's the kind of soft-hearted laissez-faire attitude that got us where we are today
- johnisgood 9mo agoYeah we need dictatorship with a dictator that opposes all your views. /s
- bandrami 9mo agoWe need to recognize that deliberately engineered psyops are deliberately engineered psyops
- logicchains 9mo agoNepal tried to ban social media to keep the youth from organizing, and the youth rose up and burned the government buildings and politicans' homes down. I'd like to see you try.
- bandrami 9mo agoThat's an incredibly simplistic narrative of what happened in Nepal but I get that that is what the media in the US/EU have been running with
- hiprob 9mo agoBan it for everyone at that point. What's the point of not letting adults use social media, exactly?
- timpera 9mo agoPlease note that the Conseil d'État, the highest French court for administrative matters, has issued a very skeptical opinion on this bill, saying that only the EU can impose new obligations onto digital platforms. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/01/27/french-lawmakers-approve-social-media-ban-for-under-15s_6749844_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/01/27/french-l... > The amended and adopted text now states that "access to an online social network service provided by an online platform is prohibited for minors under the age of 15." This is a more ambiguous formulation, as it does not explicitly impose any requirements on social networks. However, as a consequence, "platforms will have to implement age verification measures to ensure the effectiveness of this measure," the government promised in the explanatory statement of the amendment. For major platforms like Instagram or Snapchat, sanctions would fall under the jurisdiction of the European Commission. > This has raised eyebrows among several law experts specializing in European digital law, whom Le Monde interviewed. "The bill is legally fragile," warned Brunessen Bertrand, law professor at the University of Rennes-I. In her view, it is based on a "broad and highly questionable interpretation" of European rules.
- pfannkuchen 9mo agoFrexit?
- poulpy123 9mo agoOne can still dream
- thrance 9mo agoExcept the Conseil d'État is not a supreme court, so their opinion on the subject is irrelevant.
- jbstack 9mo agoI don't know how it works in France, but in common law systems opinions of other courts are always at least capable of being persuasive (not binding) precedent, so they are not irrelevant. Other courts can be, and often are, influenced by persuasive precedent when appropriate.
- vasco 9mo agoSo I guess in 10 or so years whoever doesn't submit their ID card to every online service in existence will not be able to do much of anything online.
- TheRoque 9mo agoI'm not using any social media besides reddit (if it can even be considered a social media) and I have absolutely 0 problem going through life. What are you talking about ?
- heavyset_go 9mo agoYou're using it right now.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- vasco 9mo agoYeah but after social media it will be "every site with user generated content" and later will be "any site that isn't verified" then its just a non neutral internet anymore. ID verification is inherently not aligned with net neutrality.
- VBprogrammer 9mo agoYeah, I for one am getting pissed already about having legitimate parts of the internet cut off unless I'm willing to submit to ID verification. For example, discussions about recent killings by ICE in the US. This example is one where I really don't want to tie my real life ID to my online presence for fear of retribution if I ever feel confident to travel to there again.
- heavyset_go 9mo agoSo many platforms required you to register and confirm your age via face and ID scans in order to see any of the direct footage from recent events.
- djtango 9mo agoJust the other day the FT put out an article that the current generation of graduates are so serially online that they freeze or go silent when faced with basic small talk questions. I have encountered this for myself. A few months ago New York banned phones at lunch and was discussed on HN [1] We live in times where parents and schools no longer have the authority to enforce behaviour and social media is peer pressure from the entire world. These bans are obviously heavy handed but hopefully they are a reversion back to an equilibrium that gives our young a chance to properly develop... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822539
- squigz 9mo ago> We live in times where parents and schools no longer have the authority to enforce behaviour ...What? They certainly can, if they're banning certain behavior?
- docdeek 9mo agoIt is one thing to ban something on paper, another to actually ban it in practice. In France, mobile phones for students in college (junior high school) have been banned but surveys of schools suggested only 9% of the schools actually banned the phones, citing practical and financial constraints. [0] 0: https://www.ouest-france.fr/education/les-telephones-bientot-interdits-au-lycee-le-dispositif-portable-en-pause-est-deja-a-la-peine-dans-les-colleges-b8425bc2-cc5a-11f0-9f92-1f1697d8d1ab https://www.ouest-france.fr/education/les-telephones-bientot...
- sunshine-o 9mo agoI feel all of this has been going on for the last 50 years. TV and video games were a substitute for a normal environment for kids to develop in the at the end of the last century. > We live in times where parents and schools no longer have the authority to enforce behavior Yes but the problem is much deeper. I often observer various "families" with their kids on holidays. The French and the Brits are really a nightmare, strangely the same countries who are now banning social media. But my guess is this is more of chicken than an egg problem. You will often have an hysterical woman, totally deranged and often alone, screaming constantly on the kids for no reasons. You wish you could call child protective services on them and this is only when they are "relaxing" on holiday. We know those kids are gonna get into weird internet things and drugs anyway to escape this world. France can write any law they want it is not gonna solve the problem and send them back to any "equilibrium". Blaming TV, video games and now social media 20 years late is just a way to avoid talking about the real problem.
- nkmnz 9mo agoThis is ridiculous. I went to university at the age of 14 and was absolutely capable of managing my way through social media at that time - but it became much worse in my early 20s when interest in politics peaked. Maybe interest in politics should be outlawed instead, it’s much more harmful.
- ffsm8 9mo agoIf you went to university at 14, which is what... 4+ years earlier then anyone else usually manages? then you really shouldn't extrapolate your own experience on the population at large. You'd have skipped multiple years in education, hence you'd be massively more intelligent then the general population that this regulation aims to help, (albeit against their own wishes).
- nkmnz 9mo agoWhat I say is: it’s not age that determines how harmful (and if) social media is. It’s the content that you expose yourself to. There could be ways to retain the benefits of communication networks for adolescents while keeping them away from harmful content - but most parents are too lazy and it’s much easier to ask the government to ban stuff.
- logicchains 9mo ago>Maybe interest in politics should be outlawed instead, it’s much more harmful. It's not "politics" that's harmful, it's politicians continuously acting against the interests of the younger generation. Trying to suppress the youth's ability to discuss and organize against that is tyrannical.
- terespuwash 9mo agoWhat a weird idea to isolate teens from a platform instead of regulating it. It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol. Enforcing platform’s safety and educating users (young and old) would be much better to help everyone be healthy in a connected world.
- johnisgood 9mo agoWe have not learnt anything from the war on drugs, even though many people compare social media to drugs.
- gjadi 9mo agoIt's much easier to forbid something to a subset of the population than to the population at large.
- thrance 9mo agoThat comparison is misguided. You can stop social media abruptly and not feel any withdrawal.
- Nursie 9mo agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/perth/comments/1pmvcml/my_14yo_is_losing_it_over_the_social_media_ban/ https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/comments/1pmvcml/my_14yo_is_l... I think it depends on your definition of withdrawal, but it seems that some teens did experience something analagous to it here in Australia. I think this counts in favour of the ban, myself.
- heavyset_go 9mo agoBeing discriminated against by the government sucks, and so does getting locked out of the main way the world communicates in the 21st century. I don't blame a 14 year old for not handling a violation of their rights in a mature manner.
- submeta 9mo agoAnd of course they will demand that everyone is required to do a KYC. At sone point vpn access will require that as well. And finally the internet as we know it will be a thing of the past.
- Epskampie 9mo agoStarting in 2025, the European Commission is implementing a "mini-wallet" app (an Age Verification App Blueprint) designed to allow users to prove they are over 18 without disclosing their identity or exact age. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/age-verification-european-union-mini-id-wallet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/age-verification-europ...
- aborsy 9mo agoI think this is a good thing. Social media should be treated a bit like drugs, with regards to both production and consumption.
- hcfman 9mo agoYes, the more government intervention the better. history has shown that government intervention always works out well.
- booleandilemma 9mo agoI wish we abandoned social media as a society altogether, to be honest. With the generated text and videos from AI it's only going to get worse.
- hiprob 9mo agoLaw-wise, you're currently on a social media.
- presmith09 9mo agoYou can't understand this law if you don't understand the french mindset. French people live with the republic state in mind, they will shout "this is forbidden!" for whatever reason. They can't make a statement by their own, they need to use the law as a medium to express their feelings, their frustrations, to take a decision. That's why every single part of life needs to be written in law books, otherwise french people are lost. They built USSR in their own mind. As parents don't have the guts to say no to their children, they need the politicians to raise their kids. And french politicians think they are ruling the laws of physics (or medecine) with speeches and printed papers. Everybody is happy.
- Fervicus 9mo agoGovernments just want to normalize ID verification for using online platforms. Children's safety is always the go-to cry for assimilating more power.
- Epskampie 9mo agoStarting in 2025, the European Commission is implementing a "mini-wallet" app (an Age Verification App Blueprint) designed to allow users to prove they are over 18 without disclosing their identity or exact age. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/age-verification-european-union-mini-id-wallet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/age-verification-europ...
- heavyset_go 9mo agoSome related information, I see a lot of talk about how people feel social media or phones affect young people, but little data or input from researchers who are not politicians or selling books. From Nature[1]: > Time spent on social media among the least influential factors in adolescent mental health From the Atlantic[2] with citations in the article: > The Panic Over Smartphones Doesn’t Help Teens, > It may only make things worse. > I am a developmental psychologist, and for the past 20 years, I have worked to identify how children develop mental illnesses. Since 2008, I have studied 10-to-15-year-olds using their mobile phones, with the goal of testing how a wide range of their daily experiences, including their digital-technology use, influences their mental health. My colleagues and I have repeatedly failed to find compelling support for the claim that digital-technology use is a major contributor to adolescent depression and other mental-health symptoms. > Many other researchers have found the same. In fact, a recent study and a review of research on social media and depression concluded that social media is one of the least influential factors in predicting adolescents’ mental health. The most influential factors include a family history of mental disorder; early exposure to adversity, such as violence and discrimination; and school- and family-related stressors, among others. At the end of last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report concluding, “Available research that links social media to health shows small effects and weak associations, which may be influenced by a combination of good and bad experiences. Contrary to the current cultural narrative that social media is universally harmful to adolescents, the reality is more complicated.” [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00063-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00063-7 [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/05/candice-odgers-teens-smartphones/678433/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/05/candi...
- Epskampie 9mo agoEven Meta's OWN research indicated social media is actively harmful to teens. That means, the people with the most to lose couldn't even escape this conclusion. Sure, you may be able to find 1 or 2 counterexamples, big tabacco also had a lot of "doctors" who found smoking not that bad. https://www.reuters.com/business/instagram-shows-more-eating-disorder-adjacent-content-vulnerable-teens-internal-2025-10-20/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.reuters.com/business/instagram-shows-more-eating...
- haght 9mo agoI wouldn't be so much against it, if it was anonymous If they make a system utilising the Zero-knowledge proof concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
- gonlad_x 9mo agoActually, the EU has a project centered around zk proofs exactly for this: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/opening-up-zero-knowledge-proof-technology-to-promote-privacy-in-age-assurance/ https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-secu..., https://eudi.dev/2.7.3/discussion-topics/g-zero-knowledge-proof/ https://eudi.dev/2.7.3/discussion-topics/g-zero-knowledge-pr...
- haght 9mo agoCool! Didn't know about that
- poulpy123 9mo agoWhile I do think social media use is harmful to children (not only them), the law here is to force people to use their real identity when connecting to them, and children safety is just a pretext
- ottah 9mo agoTikTok scared the elite class in ways we're not understanding. This isn't about protecting children, it's about indoctrination. You learn a santized version of the world in school and they keep you from an uncensored view of the world by controlling your access to information online. They're terrified of an informed younger generation not buying into the current political narrative. They know it's happening, because they told us that the war in Palestine was a fight against Palestinian aggressors, but young people with access to information online know it's a genocide. They want to kill that contra narrative.
- academia_hack 9mo agoReading the definitions here it looks like France is basically banning 15 year olds from using interactive websites. Platforms like Steam, Xbox Live, Minecraft, the New York Times comment section, etc all fall under the super-vague definition of social media services here: https://www.conseil-etat.fr/avis-consultatifs/derniers-avis-rendus/a-l-assemblee-nationale-et-au-senat/avis-sur-une-proposition-de-loi-visant-a-proteger-les-mineurs-des-risques-auxquels-les-expose-l-utilisation-des-reseaux-sociaux https://www.conseil-etat.fr/avis-consultatifs/derniers-avis-...
- zmmmmm 9mo agoI wish it could be more granular and ban the actual toxic elements rather than the concept as a whole. In general, people communicating with each other and forming social relationships is good. I get that it is hard to create granular laws that don't then get worked around. But I would predict that banning social media and not the toxic elements of it just means those same toxic elements will now shift to the nearest non-banned form and take root and grow from there. Then we will be banning that, and the next thing and the next ...