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.

The Commission's framing is significant for a capital that hosts both the Italian government and the Vatican, two institutions with long-standing and often differing positions on the protection of minors online. Von der Leyen's language — that Europe has the power to act — is a direct answer to the argument, common in foreign coverage of tech regulation, that national governments cannot effectively restrain platforms operating across borders. The bloc-wide approach would pre-empt the patchwork of national age limits that some member states have begun to adopt.

Italy's stake is administrative as much as political. A ban below 13 and supervised access to 15 would require platforms to verify age and would require a national authority to supervise compliance, with penalties and appeals handled under Italian administrative law. The Italian government has not, in the foreign coverage available, set out its negotiating position; The Local's report describes the Commission's plan and the political claim behind it, not a settled Italian line.

The proposal also arrives in a European autumn already crowded with regulatory business. The same week's wire carries the Commission's plan to revise Schengen short-stay visa rules and fees, and the further delay by nine EU states of the Entry/Exit System at busy airports. Together they sketch a Commission willing to legislate on the movement of people and on the attention of children in the same season — and a set of member states, Italy included, asking for time and room to implement what Brussels proposes.

What comes next is procedural. The proposal passes to the European Parliament and the Council, where Italy will sit as one of 27. The foreign wires will watch whether Rome aligns with the stricter or the lighter end of the debate, and whether the Italian regulator is given the staff and the legal tools the regime would demand. Until then the measure is a plan with a slogan attached, not a rule in force.