Report from the Financial Times
In Brief – European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced plans for an EU KIDS Act to create age-based rules limiting minors’ access to social media, AI chatbots and companions, online game and video-sharing platforms, while requiring covered services to be safe by design. The proposal follows months of pressure from European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, as Austria, Denmark, France, Greece and Spain pursue their own restrictions. Rather than impose a blanket ban before age 15, the measure would establish different types of accounts while exempting educational tools. Children under 13 could have accounts opened and fully controlled by parents if services meet strict safety standards. Those ages 13 to 15 could use introductory accounts with safety features such as limits on screen time and contact with strangers, along with parental controls. Teenagers over 15 could establish their own accounts. High-risk social media and video-sharing platforms would also be required to use age-verification technology. Enforcement will resemble the Digital Services Act and AI Act, with EU-level oversight of the highest-risk services and supervisory fees for companies. The proposed legislation will next be considered by the Council of member state governments and the European Parliament.
Context – When Meta settled the lawsuit by 48 US state attorneys general by paying more than $12 billion and agreeing to make changes to their biggest platforms, we said that we thought the other major social media platforms would eventually agree to make the same changes, that biggest impact would be forcing those platforms to change without the likely First Amendment headaches in the US if they were imposed by government, and that the platforms would soon try to convince regulators outside the US, especially the European Commission, to agree that the same set of changes is enough. In line with the EU’s public policy tradition, the commission’s tiered proposal follows the model of their child safety expert panel and is more in-line with Brazil’s Digital Statute of Children and Adolescents rather than Australia’s 16-year-old social media age limit.