Please note that the Conseil d'État, the highest French court for administrative matters, has issued a very skeptical opinion on this bill, saying that only the EU can impose new obligations onto digital platforms.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/01/27/french-l...
> The amended and adopted text now states that "access to an online social network service provided by an online platform is prohibited for minors under the age of 15." This is a more ambiguous formulation, as it does not explicitly impose any requirements on social networks. However, as a consequence, "platforms will have to implement age verification measures to ensure the effectiveness of this measure," the government promised in the explanatory statement of the amendment. For major platforms like Instagram or Snapchat, sanctions would fall under the jurisdiction of the European Commission.
> This has raised eyebrows among several law experts specializing in European digital law, whom Le Monde interviewed. "The bill is legally fragile," warned Brunessen Bertrand, law professor at the University of Rennes-I. In her view, it is based on a "broad and highly questionable interpretation" of European rules.
Frexit?
Except the Conseil d'État is not a supreme court, so their opinion on the subject is irrelevant.
Just the other day the FT put out an article that the current generation of graduates are so serially online that they freeze or go silent when faced with basic small talk questions.
I have encountered this for myself.
A few months ago New York banned phones at lunch and was discussed on HN [1]
We live in times where parents and schools no longer have the authority to enforce behaviour and social media is peer pressure from the entire world.
These bans are obviously heavy handed but hopefully they are a reversion back to an equilibrium that gives our young a chance to properly develop...
What a weird idea to isolate teens from a platform instead of regulating it. It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol. Enforcing platform’s safety and educating users (young and old) would be much better to help everyone be healthy in a connected world.
We have not learnt anything from the war on drugs, even though many people compare social media to drugs.
Very off-topic, but war on drugs failed in NA, but is successful in East Asia. It really depends on government and how they handle it. I’m not American, but my understanding of war on drugs was also that it wasn’t just about drugs, might be wrong.
It's much easier to forbid something to a subset of the population than to the population at large.
That comparison is misguided. You can stop social media abruptly and not feel any withdrawal.
I don't like the idea of centralised digital ID for the obvious surveillance/privacy arguments and think that side of the conversation needs to be focused on. BUT, I also think that the Social Media experiment has shown that social media in general really, really sucks. It sucks for adults but it's objectively damaging to kids.
So like, I am all for restricting kids from it, and honestly I'd happily see it regulated out of existence entirely.
I’d like good social media regulated into existence. Let people take their data, move to a different service, set up redirects, have some meaningful ways to customize or reject algorithms, etc. I don’t think it’s likely to happen but one can hope.
Social media is objectively damaging to the interests of the ruling class, who have been objectively damaging to western civilization during the past decades in which they had near-complete control over the flow of information. It'd be batshit crazy to go back to the times when information flow was centralized in the hands of a few corporations, just because a some neurotics can't handle the increased flow of information from decentralized media.
Isn’t the information flow being controlled by the few major social media players another form of centralisation where their algorithms decide which decentralised voices are heard?
I've noticed that there's a decent amount of people who had benefitted having access to computer and internet really early on that seemed to be pro on banning teen access to social media, is there a reason why? the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day
if algorithmic amplification is the reason then I'm not sure why social media as a whole has to be banned over it.
It's like pot.
Back in the day, it was much less concentrated and less dangerous than what you can get today.
> the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day
I’m not trying to be a jerk, but did you actually participate in “Internet forums back in the day?” I couldn’t think of anything more different than contemporary social media. Internet forums in late 90’s and early 00’s were something special. Hell, I had more “internet friends” from online forums attend my wedding than I did friends from high school or college… and for some it was the first time meeting in person.
Imo the difference is enormous between social media and forums.
Infinite feeds are designed to game you for attention, whereas the forums of yore were there to facilitate discussions.
I'm sure some forums would also have liked to game you if they could, but they didn't have the scale to always have something juicy to serve up.
To me it's super uncomfortable to expose my kids to a product designed by large teams with the goal of making it addictive.
The bodybuilding.com forums always had something juicy to serve up. Today’s social media really isn’t much different.
I find it uncomfortable for the government to yoink any citizen’s access to discussion platforms. I would be more comfortable with other means.
The people who benefited from having access to a computer and the internet early on had no access to social media. Also, nobody is banning under 15s from having access to a computer and the internet.
This site is social media. Should under 15s be prevented discussing developers in the tech industry?
No? On what grounds? HN uses opaque feed ranking algorithms. It's run by a for-profit US tech company. It uses dark patterns (e.g. shadowbans and unwired "flag" links) that prompt users to engage under false pretenses.
It even has advertisements. The horror!
Yet nobody serious says HN is harmful to the fledging minor technologist.
I've yet to see a logical rule allowing minors to access HN but prohibiting their scrolling Instagram. Every demarcation scheme I've seen is some variant of "big company bad", which is a ridiculous standard for a law intended to prevent the harms that the "structure* of a medium (as opposed to the identity of its owners) produces.
In a nation of laws, an act is allowed or prohibited based on the nature of the act itself. Actors don't get special privileges based on who they are.
There are various studies about social media having a negative impact on teenager's mental health.
I don't think internet forums are comparable to what social media are today, in the scale (it was a marginal activity 15 years ago) and the impact it has on your own life.
Social media is the rock amd roll of its time.
Every generation has to have a panic about the children.
I consider it more like an opium crisis of the time
Where the whole population is addicted and governors risk their political career to ban the addiction, and then get their territory invaded by the corporations they kicked out who have returned with a foreign military and mercenary army, to push the addiction back on the populace
Cyberpunk meets opium wars...
Actually sounds like a not so bad setting for a book/game/movie ngl; sure sounds like a garbage setting for a world to actually live in.
Advertising, a push to incredibly short video content, dumb memes, AI slop, conspiracy theories, scams, algorithms that push more of all these bad things to generate ‘engagement’ and advertising revenue and punish real thoughtful ideas. The truth hasn’t even put its shoes in before misinformation is racing around the world on these platforms.
It’s hard to think of something genuinely positive about platforms like instagram YouTube and twitter nowadays.
Trying to share genuine joy in an activity is still possible but the platforms heavily push frequent users to think of themselves as ‘content creators’ and produce trivial yet popular video clips with all the negatives that brings.
Same here; I'm all for a "ban" but it doesn't have to be all social media, just force them to use a simple rules-based algorithm for minors.
But meh, it's a broader issue anyway. Just look at the puritanical obsession some people have with pornography too.
Young people these days are getting infantilised way too much imho and that's just not healthy. There needs to be a safe environment to transition into adulthood with gradual exposure to all kinds of things, rather than turning 18 and suddenly being a different category of person entirely.
>I've noticed that there's a decent amount of people who had benefitted having access to computer and internet really early on that seemed to be pro on banning teen access to social media
Most of the people on this platform are left-leaning, and social media has allowed right-wing ideas to spread among the youth, ideas which they'd never have been exposed to if their information was filtered through left-leaning teachers and media as it was in previous decades. They want to ban social media in an attempt to bring future youth back leftwards.
There are supposedly studies linking social media to various negative consequences. For example, according to the Mayo Clinic, social media can:
- Distract from homework, exercise and family activities.
- Disrupt sleep.
- Lead to information that is biased or not correct.
... Ah, just like that public health menace, the public library.
I don't believe "social media" is actually injurious to youths. The studies saying it does, ISTM, are all confounded, of poor quality, and ride off publication bias. And yeah, it's remarkable that a lot of people on this very thread ago grew up on the Internet and gained lifelong technical skills want to pull the ladder up after them on the grounds of unproven and implausible harms.
In reality, the drive for social media age limits is the latest in a long line of moral panics. In the 80s, it was D&D corrupting innocent souls. Now, it's feed ranking? I don't believe any of it.
Looking for reason at the root of a moral panic usually leads only to despair. These things just have to be endured.
It's a good start. Ban it for all under 30s and over 60s.
That’s a little harsh. Under 25 and over 75 would be more appropriate.
That's the kind of soft-hearted laissez-faire attitude that got us where we are today
Yeah we need dictatorship with a dictator that opposes all your views. /s
We need to recognize that deliberately engineered psyops are deliberately engineered psyops
Nepal tried to ban social media to keep the youth from organizing, and the youth rose up and burned the government buildings and politicans' homes down. I'd like to see you try.
I think this is a good thing. Social media should be treated a bit like drugs, with regards to both production and consumption.
Yes, the more government intervention the better. history has shown that government intervention always works out well.
So I guess in 10 or so years whoever doesn't submit their ID card to every online service in existence will not be able to do much of anything online.
Yeah, I for one am getting pissed already about having legitimate parts of the internet cut off unless I'm willing to submit to ID verification.
For example, discussions about recent killings by ICE in the US. This example is one where I really don't want to tie my real life ID to my online presence for fear of retribution if I ever feel confident to travel to there again.
I'm not using any social media besides reddit (if it can even be considered a social media) and I have absolutely 0 problem going through life. What are you talking about ?
This is ridiculous. I went to university at the age of 14 and was absolutely capable of managing my way through social media at that time - but it became much worse in my early 20s when interest in politics peaked. Maybe interest in politics should be outlawed instead, it’s much more harmful.
If you went to university at 14, which is what... 4+ years earlier then anyone else usually manages? then you really shouldn't extrapolate your own experience on the population at large.
You'd have skipped multiple years in education, hence you'd be massively more intelligent then the general population that this regulation aims to help, (albeit against their own wishes).
>Maybe interest in politics should be outlawed instead, it’s much more harmful.
It's not "politics" that's harmful, it's politicians continuously acting against the interests of the younger generation. Trying to suppress the youth's ability to discuss and organize against that is tyrannical.
Not yet passed, waiting for senate approval.
Senate just stamps whatever comes on their desk in France
Not exactly. They don't have the final say, so if they disagree with something, they can (and will) be overruled. But they don't "stamp" things and aren't otherwise made to approve what they don't like.
Violation of privacy under the pretense of protecting children
I can't read the article because cloud flare won't let me, but how is this ban a violation of privacy? From my knowledge of social media it would likely increase the privacy of those not using these platforms.
I think the privacy concern is how to prove you're of age without needing to hand over a government ID.
Oh ok, like the porn ban in the UK.
Then if the age verification is in the hands of these companies that is bad. There's nothing they'd like more than knowing exactly who you are.
Because under the guise of protecting children you now require the ID of everyone. And the service list will expand. Can't wait to have to swipe my ID to even start Chrome.
And of course they will demand that everyone is required to do a KYC. At sone point vpn access will require that as well. And finally the internet as we know it will be a thing of the past.
Good. We need more of these laws with more teeth.
if they need age verification they will ask for everyone's ID, that is why they are doing that in the first place.
They're doing this because it's bad for teen mental health, and polls keep showing 70% support and 15% opposition.
I was happy enough to use Vimeo for several years, then made an account to be able to watch videos all of a sudden, and just recently when I logged in they've asked me to also verify (?) my identity with an ID. Yeah, not doing that.
I wish we abandoned social media as a society altogether, to be honest. With the generated text and videos from AI it's only going to get worse.
This kind of legislation is frankly just bad. Any TV station in america could have broadcasted the worst things in the world to thousands of people affecting their lives together. You know how we handled that? Legislation on the broadcasters. We didn't stop kids from watching TV.
I'm not a fan of the law, but your argument is pretty weak. The dose makes the poison and all that. It seems rationale to believe that humans can construct an entertainment mechanism so addictive as to warrant safeguards. The debate is mostly around whether this is that point and whether the trade-offs are worth it.
> It seems rationale to believe that humans can construct an entertainment mechanism so addictive as to warrant safeguards.
Okay but the conversation isn't "Should we have safeguards" it's "How do we handle the poison?".
...yes? Humans love their poisons even if it's not in their best interest to love them. It's all about giving people a fighting chance to make conscious decisions about how they want to live their life. If we crush a fledgling brain with social media before it's learned to fend for itself then we're removing true freedom of choice.
To me, it seems pretty analogous to alcohol, etc. You don't prohibit alcohol. You define an age in which you're willing to declare people mature enough to tolerate letting them make their own decisions.
How do you compare a system where the communication channel goes only one way in a single country to a system where everyone potentially contributes to the content and is distributed over the world?
How does one country legislate the content of a company based in another country?
Do you think that censorship is a better solution?
Bad content reaching kids is not the issue. (Well, it is part of it…) The whole thing is bad. We don't give cigarettes to kids either.
Actually, we don't stop kids from buying cigarettes, we punish stores that sell cigarettes to kids and are caught! That's my entire point! You just made my argument for me!
And the store does not use facial recognition and/or checking id to know if the potential buyer is a kid ? The only (huge) difference for me is the scale of the verification and how data are stored.
Despite the headline, does this law actually punish the children if they are caught with social media accounts? Or is the burden on the social media providers?
Key word is "broadcast". TV programming is not personally tailored to melt your specific amygdala.
An algo-driven feed is absolutely analogous to a broadcast and saying otherwise is absurd.
I have to assume this is a joke because that's absolutely ludicrous to claim and (if true) would mean the valuation of every social media company is so inflated as to constitute fraud.
Oh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far?
Exactly..
They will use any trick or loophole available to keep the reach and to exploit attention spans. Kids brains aren't correct really made for social media whatsoever. Ban is justified and the bar should be even higher than 15 years old, but it's a start.
I have a young baby and no way it touches anything smartphone related for many many years, same goes with TV to a certain extent (these things are like smartphones nowadays with all the apps and programme fighting for your attention and to enrage you). I am doing my part, I for sure expect the government does their thing as well. Exploitators should stay in check and at bay with any means necessary
> Oh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far?
This feels like you intended to make it a gotcha question, but the answer is: America isn't really trying to do that at all. So we should just give up?
"Damn, handling biowaste is hard and dangerous, what we'll do is just prevent people from leaving their house."
I'm not in America nor would I rely on their legislators doing anything about it, especially with current admin. France, Australia and the likes (who are in process of implementing banning social media for kids) is the only way behemots will understand. Otherwise you're risking loopholes beig exploited, bureaucracy being slow while behemots move fast, etc. Ban is pretty much self explanatory and leaves little room for interpretation, at least not in a way where 100s of pages of moderation guidelines and potential ambiguity such docs create