EU Proposes Social Media Ban for Under-13s, Supervised Access to 15

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 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The Local Italy reported the announcement, quoting von der Leyen's framing: 'Europe has power to act.'

The proposal, as reported, sets two thresholds: a hard ban below 13, and a supervised regime between 13 and 15. The Local Italy does not detail the enforcement mechanism, the penalties, or the timeline for adoption, and La Veduta will not supply them.

The announcement places the EU ahead of most national governments in regulating minors' platform access, and it arrives as member states debate their own age-verification rules. Italy, like other member states, would be bound by whatever emerges from the Brussels process.

The measure, if adopted, would apply across the single market, which means platforms operating in Italy would face the same under-13 prohibition as those in France or Germany. The Local Italy reports the plan as a Commission initiative announced by von der Leyen on Wednesday, without specifying whether it takes the form of a directive, a regulation, or a recommendation. That distinction matters for how quickly it would bind Italian law, and the wire does not resolve it.

The proposal also lands in a European policy season already crowded with digital rules — the Digital Services Act, age-verification pilots, and member-state experiments with ID-based access. The Local Italy's report does not connect the social media plan to those instruments, and La Veduta will not draw the link beyond what is stated.

For Italian households, the practical question is enforcement. Age verification at scale has proven difficult in every jurisdiction that has attempted it, and the Commission's plan, as reported, does not yet describe how a 12-year-old's account would be blocked in practice. The wire gives the political announcement, not the mechanism.

What the coverage does establish is the political direction: Brussels is prepared to legislate on minors' platform access, and von der Leyen is presenting it as an exercise of European competence rather than a matter left to national capitals. The Local Italy reports the announcement; the legislative text, the vote, and the Italian implementing measures are not yet in the wire.