EU Moves to Bar Under-13s From Social Media, and Rome Weighs the Machinery

The European Union will ban social media for children under 13 and permit 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. Presenting the measure, she said that "Europe has power to act", framing the proposal as a claim of regulatory authority over platforms that national governments have struggled to police alone.

The announcement, carried by The Local's Rome desk from the Commission's briefing, sets out a two-tier age regime rather than a single threshold: a hard prohibition below 13, and a restricted, supervised regime between 13 and 15. It is a Commission plan, not yet law; the text would have to pass the European Parliament and the Council, where the 27 member states, Italy among them, would negotiate its final shape.

For Rome the proposal lands on a question the Italian state has already been arguing with itself. Age verification, parental consent and platform compliance would fall to national regulators and to the communications authority, while the government's own position in Council would determine how strictly the regime is drawn. The foreign coverage so far describes the plan's ambition; the enforcement architecture is where member states will do the bargaining.