France Plans to Ban Social Media for Children Under a Certain Age: A Global Battle for Digital Guardianship

On January 24, 2026, French President Emmanuel Macron released a video via BFMTV, firmly announcing the launch of an accelerated legislative process aimed at completely banning children under the age of 15 from using social media by the start of the new school year in September of the same year. He declared: "The brains of our children and teenagers are not for sale. Their emotions should not be sold or manipulated, whether by American platforms or Chinese algorithms." This strongly worded statement quickly propelled France to the forefront of the global debate on child protection policies in the digital age.

This bill will be debated in the French National Assembly on January 26. It may not only become a landmark policy during Macron's second term but also reflects a growing anxiety and shift in Western societies as they address the generational crisis brought about by social media. From Australia's pioneering legislation to intense debates in the UK Parliament and cautious explorations in several European countries, a global policy experiment centered on digital guardianship is unfolding.

French Proposal: From Political Commitment to Accelerated Legislation

Macron's announcement was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. As early as the end of 2025, the French National Agency for Health Security (Anses) released a strongly worded report, clearly pointing out that social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, which have permeated the daily lives of teenagers, are severely harming their mental health. The report listed a series of risks including cyberbullying, endless social comparison, exposure to violent content, and specifically highlighted the issue of attention-capture systems at the expense of sleep.

The core proponent of this legislative proposal is MP Raul Miller from Macron's Renaissance Party. In an interview with the relevant French parliamentary television channel, she directly pointed out the current regulatory gap: Currently, there is no age verification. You can input any birth date to access the platform. We hope to, through strict enforcement of the EU's Digital Services Act, compel platforms to conduct real age verification when users access social networks. This will change everything, as users will have to prove whether they are over 15 years old.

While Miller acknowledges that there will always be ways to bypass restrictions, she emphasizes that France should at least take the first step in protecting minors online. This proposal, bundled with another measure—banning mobile phones in high school campuses—forms a clear set of rules in the eyes of Macron's government: these are clear rules for our youth, families, and teachers, and we are moving forward.

Data from the French health department provides a footnote to this urgency: one in two adolescents spends 2 to 5 hours daily on their smartphones; among those aged 12 to 17, nearly 90% use smartphones to access the internet every day, with 58% using the devices for social networks. The report reveals a series of harmful effects associated with social media use, including decreased self-esteem and increased exposure to content related to high-risk behaviors such as self-harm, drug use, and suicide. Several families in France have filed lawsuits against TikTok over adolescent suicides, alleging its connection to harmful content.

Global Landscape: From Australian Pioneers to European Explorers

France's action is not an isolated incident; it is situated within a rapidly evolving global policy landscape.

Australia is undoubtedly the most radical pioneer in this movement. The Australian law, which takes effect at the end of 2025, is widely regarded as one of the strictest measures among democratic nations. This law mandates platforms to ensure users are at least 16 years old and to delete accounts of users who are too young. Meta has announced the removal of 544,000 accounts belonging to users under 16 in compliance with the new law, including 331,000 on Instagram and 173,000 on Facebook. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated last month that since the ban was implemented, over 4.7 million social media accounts identified as held by children under 16 have been suspended or deleted. Albanese told CNN that the government implemented the ban because "we know it is causing social harm, so we have a responsibility to respond to the pleas of parents and to the call from young people to 'let us be kids again.'"

Behind Australian legislation, there is a dual impetus from academia and family. The 2024 book "The Anxious Generation" by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt played a key role. The book argues that social media erodes children's mental health. After reading it, the wife of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas recounted its content to her husband every night and urged him to take action. This directly led to legislative initiatives at both the state and federal levels. Haidt's core argument is: We overprotect children in the real world but underprotect them in the online world. We are wrong on both counts.

In Europe, unified action has not yet taken shape, but countries are exploring their own approaches. In November 2023, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a non-binding report recommending a ban on unrestricted access to social media for children under 16 across the EU. Before common measures are introduced, individual countries have rolled out their own plans. In October 2025, Denmark announced a legislative proposal to ban social media access for children under 15, while allowing parents to authorize usage for children over 13. Spain is also reviewing a bill to prohibit social media access for children under 16. Germany implements a system based on parental consent for children aged 13 to 16.

Pressure is mounting in the UK. The House of Lords recently voted in favor of an amendment aimed at banning children under 16 from accessing social media. This has placed significant pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Although the government expressed opposition and stated it would not accept the amendment, over 60 MPs from the ruling Labour Party have jointly written to Starmer, demanding the implementation of a ban. The UK government has announced it will launch a three-month rapid consultation to consider a range of measures, including a ban, such as nighttime restrictions, mandatory breaks to prevent excessive use, and stricter enforcement of age verification.

The case of South Korea provides a lesson worth reflecting on. In 2011, the country passed the so-called "Cinderella Law," prohibiting teenagers under 16 from accessing online games from midnight to 6 a.m. However, a decade later, the government repealed the law over concerns that it infringed on minors' rights. It was replaced by a law allowing parents or children to set their own restrictions, but only 0.01% of users utilized this system, highlighting the limitations of relying solely on voluntary mechanisms.

Controversies and Challenges: Feasibility, Privacy, and Boundaries of Rights

Although the intention to protect children has garnered widespread resonance, the proposed bans in France and various countries face significant technical, legal, and ethical challenges.

The most direct challenge lies in feasibility. How to effectively, accurately, and at scale conduct age verification presents the first major technical hurdle for the policy. Currently, mainstream platforms rely on user self-declaration of age, which is essentially a formality. Stricter verification could involve uploading identification documents, linking to real-name mobile numbers, or even facial recognition, immediately raising significant privacy concerns. While the EU's Digital Services Act mandates enhanced age verification, there is still no perfect solution on how to specifically balance protection and privacy. As X platform owner Elon Musk criticized regarding Australia's 2024 proposal, it resembles a backdoor war to control all Australians' internet access.

Legal challenges are equally significant and cannot be overlooked. In Australia, only Reddit has initiated legal proceedings against the regulations (though it currently remains compliant). It is foreseeable that well-funded tech giants will not easily relinquish the vast market of young users. They may launch legal challenges in multiple jurisdictions worldwide, citing grounds such as freedom of speech, privacy rights, or technical infeasibility. Furthermore, establishing a uniform age threshold is inherently contentious. Why 15 years old instead of 14 or 16? Is the scientific basis sufficient? Given the significant variations in maturity among different children, is a one-size-fits-all approach fair and reasonable?

The deeper conflict lies in the transfer of guardianship and the definition of digital rights. Traditionally, parents are the primary responsible parties for child protection. Does direct intervention by national legislation imply excessive interference with family autonomy? Supporters argue that in an era where algorithms are omnipresent, parents are no longer capable of combating meticulously designed addictive systems alone, and state authority must establish a line of defense. Opponents, however, worry that this may lead to a nanny-state tendency and undermine opportunities to cultivate children's digital literacy and self-discipline. The transition of South Korea's "Cinderella Law" from mandatory to voluntary precisely reflects this dilemma.

Future Direction: Paradigm Shift in Regulation and Global Linkage

France is accelerating the push for a ban, marking a profound shift in the global paradigm of social media regulation. The dominant approach over the past decade has been platform self-regulation and content moderation, but now the trend is shifting toward more proactive and structured age access restrictions. This is no longer just about cleaning up harmful content; it is an attempt to fundamentally isolate minors from specific digital environments.

This shift complements another parallel policy—the ban on mobile phones in schools—working hand in hand. Italy has decided to extend the ban to high schools starting from the 2025-2026 academic year; the Netherlands has reported significant improvements in academic performance since implementing national guidelines in 2024; Luxembourg prohibits children under 11 from using mobile phones in primary schools. Together, these measures aim to create an oasis free from instant digital distractions for adolescents during a critical stage of their development.

Analysis indicates that the future regulatory framework is likely to exhibit a multi-layered, hybrid characteristic. A complete ban may only be the starting point, not the endpoint. A more mature system might integrate: 1) Strict mandatory age verification as a firewall; 2) A tiered management system that sets different usage permissions and time limits for different age groups (e.g., the model in China: users under 14 years old are limited to no more than 40 minutes of daily use on Douyin); 3) Enhanced parental control tools to make them truly effective and easy to use; 4) Deep integration of digital literacy education into school curricula.

France's legislative process will be closely observed. If its bill is ultimately passed and implemented, it will become the first comprehensive ban of its kind among major European economies, inevitably creating a strong demonstration effect and further driving discussions on unified legislation at the EU level. Meanwhile, the coordination across the Atlantic is also noteworthy. Political polarization in the United States makes similar federal-level legislation difficult, but sporadic attempts have emerged at the state level. Developments in Europe and Australia will provide ammunition and templates for domestic debates in the U.S.

Macron described children's brains and emotions as commodities not for sale. Behind his words lies a profound economic and political anxiety: in the digital age, individual attention and data have become core production resources, with adolescents being the most vulnerable group for exploitation. This global discussion on age restrictions for social media is essentially a redefinition of civil rights in the digital era, children's developmental sovereignty, and the boundaries of tech companies' power. It raises far more questions than answers: How can we embrace technological convenience while safeguarding humanity's most precious growth process? How far should the state's protective hand extend? In a world woven by algorithms, how should the definition of childhood be written?

France's attempt, regardless of its ultimate success or failure, has sharply brought these issues before the global community. The answers will shape the spiritual outlook of the next generation and the future of the world.