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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.
As a french, I hate this law but I'm really pissed of that EU has any say in what laws we are passing.
Except the Conseil d'État is not a supreme court, so their opinion on the subject is irrelevant.
Frexit?
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...
> We live in times where parents and schools no longer have the authority to enforce behaviour
...What? They certainly can, if they're banning certain behavior?
I feel all of this has been going on for the last 50 years. TV and video games were a substitute for a normal environment for kids to develop in the at the end of the last century.
> We live in times where parents and schools no longer have the authority to enforce behavior
Yes but the problem is much deeper.
I often observer various "families" with their kids on holidays. The French and the Brits are really a nightmare, strangely the same countries who are now banning social media. But my guess is this is more of chicken than an egg problem.
You will often have an hysterical woman, totally deranged and often alone, screaming constantly on the kids for no reasons. You wish you could call child protective services on them and this is only when they are "relaxing" on holiday.
We know those kids are gonna get into weird internet things and drugs anyway to escape this world. France can write any law they want it is not gonna solve the problem and send them back to any "equilibrium".
Blaming TV, video games and now social media 20 years late is just a way to avoid talking about the real problem.
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.
Yeah, but should the state really be this deeply involved in the personal choices of it's constituency? We don't stick our hands into similar activities such as religion, political affiliation, or dietary habits. Sure you can make a slightly better case that children need greater protection but the evidence for the harms of social media are contentious at best. There's no scientific consensus on social media, but there is pretty strong agreement on calories and sugar, but we're not banning sugar for children. This to me just seems like a power grab.
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.
Reading the definitions here it looks like France is basically banning 15 year olds from using interactive websites. Platforms like Steam, Xbox Live, Minecraft, the New York Times comment section, etc all fall under the super-vague definition of social media services here: https://www.conseil-etat.fr/avis-consultatifs/derniers-avis-...
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.
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 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.
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.
> the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day
The message boards I participated when I was a young teenager were mostly focused on a specific topic (a specific videogame or series of videogame, or a specific genre), with some off-topics board on the side. They were contained communities; village-like if you will. If you don't like one you could hop on another website that had another set of members, customs, and rules.
(yes, you can sort-of see that small village feel with some Discord group or subreddit; but back then the media were controlled by an admin, not a centralized for-profit group)
Contrast this with today's infinite feed were everyone could potentially reach anyone, all curated by The Algorithm(tm) with a vague notion of "friend" or "subscriber".
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.
The social media of today is very very much different from internet forums of old.
The old forums were populated by people with specific interests who sought out community. This is opposed to modern social media where everyone is on a single (or several) platforms where the community is recommended to you. This bypasses the first mental defense of actively sifting through content.
The second difference is the commodification of attention. Old forums have no intention of keeping you on them. You are free to join and leave as you please, so are others there. In contrast, modern social media have become a place where people need to be to network online (see Facebook and LinkedIn). In addition, the incentive of advertisements encourage social media to keep your attention as a source of revenue than to serve your interests as a user.
So if governments want to regulate social media, I'm all up for it. They regulated gambling and drugs for addiction, why not social media.
It's like pot.
Back in the day, it was much less concentrated and less dangerous than what you can get today.
Social media is the rock amd roll of its time.
Every generation has to have a panic about the children.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
... No offense, but have you ever actually _used_ Tiktok? This take is incredibly out of touch.
Tiktok is to early forums like meth is to black tea.
It's a good start. Ban it for all under 30s and over 60s.
Ban it for everyone at that point. What's the point of not letting adults use social media, exactly?
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.
That’s a little harsh. Under 25 and over 75 would be more appropriate.
I wish it could be more granular and ban the actual toxic elements rather than the concept as a whole. In general, people communicating with each other and forming social relationships is good. I get that it is hard to create granular laws that don't then get worked around. But I would predict that banning social media and not the toxic elements of it just means those same toxic elements will now shift to the nearest non-banned form and take root and grow from there. Then we will be banning that, and the next thing and the next ...
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.
Starting in 2025, the European Commission is implementing a "mini-wallet" app (an Age Verification App Blueprint) designed to allow users to prove they are over 18 without disclosing their identity or exact age.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/age-verification-europ...
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.
I wouldn't be so much against it, if it was anonymous
If they make a system utilising the Zero-knowledge proof concept
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
While I do think social media use is harmful to children (not only them), the law here is to force people to use their real identity when connecting to them, and children safety is just a pretext
Violation of privacy under the pretense of protecting children
Governments just want to normalize ID verification for using online platforms. Children's safety is always the go-to cry for assimilating more power.
Some related information, I see a lot of talk about how people feel social media or phones affect young people, but little data or input from researchers who are not politicians or selling books.
From Nature[1]:
> Time spent on social media among the least influential factors in adolescent mental health
From the Atlantic[2] with citations in the article:
> The Panic Over Smartphones Doesn’t Help Teens,
> It may only make things worse.
> I am a developmental psychologist, and for the past 20 years, I have worked to identify how children develop mental illnesses. Since 2008, I have studied 10-to-15-year-olds using their mobile phones, with the goal of testing how a wide range of their daily experiences, including their digital-technology use, influences their mental health. My colleagues and I have repeatedly failed to find compelling support for the claim that digital-technology use is a major contributor to adolescent depression and other mental-health symptoms.
> Many other researchers have found the same. In fact, a recent study and a review of research on social media and depression concluded that social media is one of the least influential factors in predicting adolescents’ mental health. The most influential factors include a family history of mental disorder; early exposure to adversity, such as violence and discrimination; and school- and family-related stressors, among others. At the end of last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report concluding, “Available research that links social media to health shows small effects and weak associations, which may be influenced by a combination of good and bad experiences. Contrary to the current cultural narrative that social media is universally harmful to adolescents, the reality is more complicated.”
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00063-7
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/05/candi...
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.
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.
Not yet passed, waiting for senate approval.
I think this is a good thing. Social media should be treated a bit like drugs, with regards to both production and consumption.
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.
TikTok scared the elite class in ways we're not understanding. This isn't about protecting children, it's about indoctrination. You learn a santized version of the world in school and they keep you from an uncensored view of the world by controlling your access to information online. They're terrified of an informed younger generation not buying into the current political narrative. They know it's happening, because they told us that the war in Palestine was a fight against Palestinian aggressors, but young people with access to information online know it's a genocide. They want to kill that contra narrative.
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.
You can't understand this law if you don't understand the french mindset. French people live with the republic state in mind, they will shout "this is forbidden!" for whatever reason. They can't make a statement by their own, they need to use the law as a medium to express their feelings, their frustrations, to take a decision.
That's why every single part of life needs to be written in law books, otherwise french people are lost. They built USSR in their own mind. As parents don't have the guts to say no to their children, they need the politicians to raise their kids. And french politicians think they are ruling the laws of physics (or medecine) with speeches and printed papers. Everybody is happy.
Good. We need more of these laws with more teeth.