The EU wants a ban on social media for children under 13 to protect them.

This is a project supported in Europe, notably by Emmanuel Macron, and which now has the backing of the European Commission: banning access to social media for children under 13 to protect them from the negative impacts of these platforms on education and mental health. Ursula von der Leyen announced this on Wednesday during her State of the Union address.

To defend her project, Ursula von der Leyen evokes a tragedy: that of Oléa, a Belgian teenager who took her own life after being harassed on social media… and the chair of the commission quotes the girl's mother in French: "I am convinced that without these omnipresent networks my daughter would still be here."

“Enough is enough,” concluded Ursula von der Leyen, who wants to ban social media for children under 13 and impose parental controls until the age of 15. These measures, which will require the agreement of MEPs and the 27 EU member states, will be detailed on Thursday in a draft European law, the “Children’s Law,” which will be presented in Strasbourg by the President of the European Commission, alongside the Commissioner for Digital Affairs, Henna Virkkunen.

The measures were welcomed by Swedish MEP Helene Fritzon: "Today we see these children sitting in front of their mobile phones for hours, and we see the terrible consequences of all this... so it's very good to set limits."

Calls for stricter regulation of tech giants

But Ursula von der Leyen's proposal is being challenged in the chamber: for the Green Party member David Cormand, the age limits will be too easily circumvented: "That's why I'm talking about a diversion, because while we're talking about this, we're not going to address the real regulation of these tech giants. We're not going to address these algorithms, their business model, the fact that there is little or no content moderation. So, we have a problem here, but it's being dealt with in a counterproductive way."

New constraints will nevertheless be imposed on the platforms, but critics of the project point to the Commission's inability to enforce the rules already put in place by the European Union.