The EU Moves to Ban Social Media for Under-13s

The European Union will ban social media for children under 13 and allow only limited, supervised access until the age of 15, under plans unveiled on Wednesday by the Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, according to The Local Italy. Announcing the proposal, von der Leyen said Europe had the power to act. The measure would apply across the bloc, which means it would bind Italy along with every other member state.

The proposal is the most sweeping intervention yet in the European debate over minors and online platforms, and it shifts the argument from platform self-regulation to a statutory age floor. As reported, the framework pairs a hard prohibition below 13 with a supervised regime between 13 and 15 — a structure that presumes some mechanism for verifying age, though the sources do not describe how that verification would work or who would operate it.

Enforcement would fall to national authorities, and that is where the practical questions accumulate. Italy already requires age verification for certain online services, but the sources do not state how existing Italian arrangements would be adapted, nor whether the Commission intends a single bloc-wide verification standard. The Local Italy reports the plan as an unveiled proposal, not as adopted law; the legislative path ahead is not described.