EU May Announce a Kids’ Social Media Ban in September

Key Takeaways

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to announce proposals for an EU-wide social media ban for children during her State of the Union address in Strasbourg on September 16th.
• The precise minimum age threshold and enforcement mechanism have not yet been decided — options on the table range from mandatory parental consent to outright account bans backed by age verification technology.
• Momentum is accelerating as France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, and Greece pursue their own national restrictions, with Brussels under pressure to act before member state laws diverge too far.
• Von der Leyen has repeatedly cited Australia's under-16 social media ban as a model, despite mounting evidence that the Australian ban is struggling to achieve its stated goals.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to use her annual State of the Union address on September 16th in Strasbourg to announce proposals for an EU-wide social media ban for children, according to reporting by Euractiv, which spoke to multiple EU officials and diplomats.

Commission officials have already briefed national governments to expect an announcement, and online child safety has become one of von der Leyen's stated signature priorities in her second mandate, described by one national representative as a personal "pet project."

The details remain unresolved. A Commission spokesperson confirmed that "different options on the table" are still being weighed, and an advisory panel established by von der Leyen to examine the question is not expected to publish its recommendations until July 13th. 

The minimum age, the enforcement mechanism, and the legal framework are all still open questions. What is clear is the political direction: Brussels is moving toward requiring platforms to prevent children below a certain age from holding accounts, either through mandatory parental consent or age verification technology, or both.

The pressure is coming from multiple directions. France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, and Greece have all pursued national restrictions. The UK announced last month that it would introduce an Australia-style ban for under-16s, expected in spring 2027. 

Ireland, currently holding the rotating EU Council presidency, has made online child safety a priority and is actively pushing for a bloc-wide approach. "A lot of momentum is building," Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said last week. One diplomat put the urgency bluntly: "The more it waits, the less flexible member states are at adapting their legal frameworks."

We Shouldn’t Follow Australia’s Lead

Von der Leyen has repeatedly pointed to Australia's Online Safety Amendment Act, which took effect in December 2025 and bans under-16s from major social media platforms, as evidence that this kind of legislation is achievable and worth pursuing. That’s not exactly the case.

Australia's ban is the most-watched experiment in social media age restriction in the world right now, and the early results aren’t encouraging. The country's own eSafety Commission reported that seven out of ten children who had social media accounts before the ban still have "some access." The Australian government's response has been to double the maximum fine for non-compliant platforms to $99 million AUD and expand regulatory powers; this is what you do when a policy isn't working, and you're not ready to say so.

Pointing to Australia as a model at this stage means pointing to a law that has been in effect for less than a year, is demonstrably struggling to achieve its core purpose, and whose government is already escalating enforcement pressure in response to that failure. That’s not a strong foundation for a regulatory framework that would apply to 450 million people across 27 countries.

What’s Coming and What’s at Stake

The EU's scale is what makes this announcement significant beyond European borders. If Brussels adopts an age restriction framework, it will set regulatory expectations that ripple outward, shaping what platforms build globally, influencing how other governments frame their own legislation, and establishing norms that are difficult to walk back once embedded in law.

The key variable is the enforcement mechanism. Mandatory parental consent and age verification technology aren’t equivalent. Parental consent schemes create access barriers and introduce verification friction, but they can, in principle, be designed without requiring every user to submit identity documents. Age verification technology, by contrast, almost always means identity documents, like government IDs, biometric checks, third-party data processors, and all the privacy exposure that comes with them.

I keep returning to the same concern across all of these laws: the people most burdened by the enforcement mechanism aren’t the children being protected, but the adults navigating identity verification requirements, and the vulnerable young people, like those in difficult home situations, LGBTQ+ youth relying on online communities, minors in non-traditional families, who lose access to resources when blanket age restrictions remove the option of anonymous participation.

Protecting children online is a good idea, but the momentum building around social media bans is anything but. The EU, announcing a bloc-wide framework in September, would face itself with an approach that’s already showing its limits in the countries that moved first.