France bans social media for teens under 15, no phones in school

[DragonSlayer101]

The big picture: Following Australia's lead, France's National Assembly has approved a bill that would prohibit social media access for children under 15 and impose a blanket ban on mobile phone use in high schools. The proposals must now pass the Senate before they can be signed into law by President Emmanuel Macron.

Lawmakers in the lower house of the French Parliament passed the bill by a 130 – 21 vote late Monday night, marking a rare show of bipartisan unity in the deeply divided Assemblée Nationale. Nearly all leading French lawmakers expressed strong support for the measure, citing it as the most effective way to protect children from cyber-bullying and inappropriate online content.

President Macron, who actively campaigned for the bill, hailed the vote as a "major step" toward ensuring the online safety and mental well-being of children in France. Speaking on French television, Macron urged Senate leaders to fast-track the legislation, saying that "the emotions of our children and teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated" by American and Chinese corporations.

Macron added that most scientists recommend reducing screen time for children under 15 and claimed that the majority of people in the country are "overwhelmingly" in favor of a law restricting kids from spending excessive time online. "The dreams and aspirations of our children must not be dictated by algorithms," he said.

The bill's provisions will be debated in the Senate in the coming weeks. If approved, the law could take effect at the start of the next school year in September, potentially paving the way for similar measures in other EU countries, including Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Italy, where lawmakers are actively considering restrictions on children's social media use.

Australia became the first democratic country to impose such restrictions last month, passing bipartisan legislation that sets a mandatory minimum age of 16 to open and operate social media accounts. The ban applies to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X, YouTube, Reddit, Threads, Twitch, and Kick.

Within the first few days after the law took effect on December 10, at least 4.7 million accounts believed to belong to minors were deleted or deactivated by the designated platforms. The law also stipulates fines of up to A$50 million ($32 million) for noncompliance with the age-restriction requirements.

Permalink to story:

France bans social media for teens under 15, no phones in school

 

[bviktor]

Cool!

 

[EvilRebar]

This is a good thing. But my cynicism suggests that children will move to non-blacklisted, smaller platforms triggering whack-a-mole.

 

[winjer]

Good measure.
More countries should follow.

 

[NumberNine]

I'd say bump it on up to 18 before they can agree to anything with a terms of service. Stop feeding kids to the machine and stop using them as tools to explain away abuse of privacy standards. I'd ask if they had no shame but these are officials so my question would be redundant.

 

[Squid Surprise]

While they’re at it, tell them to get off my lawn!

Yep, the answer to troubled children is to place more restrictions on them… that can’t possibly backfire…

 

[MasterAce]

The thing that bothers me with these laws is the fact that social media is not a big tech product, it is an idea. And sensoring ideas becomes quickly impossible. Open platforms like bluesky or mastodon do exist, and there is no corporation to fine behind them. And moderation is also weaker. Any old forum can become ”social media” if the kids decide to flock to it. These governments would have to ban the internet all the way back to ’90.

The only tangible thing we can limit is the screen time.

 

[bandit8623]

While they’re at it, tell them to get off my lawn!

Yep, the answer to troubled children is to place more restrictions on them… that can’t possibly backfire…

LOL how will it backfire? the kids will use them out of school? no backfire there. no reason kids need to be on their phones while in class. tell me a few good reasons for them to have in class?

 

[Dr Roboto]

Let’s be clear. This is a hard topic. Regulation can be a slippery slope. And the ability of technology to manipulate both children and adults is real (fact, not fiction). Parents can do better, and society can do better.

What I don’t understand is why so many people treat this issue so shallowly. There’s no simple solution. I’m not sure I support government regulation, but I also know tech companies will do almost anything to increase profits. And I definitely don’t think it’s fair to dump all the blame on parents, as if it’s entirely their fault, when virtually the entire first-world society is dealing with “tech bros” and platforms designed to manipulate us.

At least France is trying. Can't say as much for the US where if anything we have gone the other way.

 

[BlackyNoir]

I'd say bump it on up to 18 before they can agree to anything with a terms of service.

That would be very weird. The sexual age of consent is 15, but social media is a bigger deal?

 

[BlackyNoir]

Well, they wanted more digital and computer training for people. That will certainly motivate the kids to learn those... to bypass those restrictions.

 

[toooooot]

Watch them, they all are going to make exceptions for the platforms that project their government's ideology and politics. And since the popular thing in EU right now is progressive liberalism, it benefits no children unless they go around and still use the platforms they like.
That thing known as progressive liberalism is destructive at the very core.
You either are a believer and take it by faith, or you realize it is wrong when you grow older.
It is like in those horror movies when the main character joins a remote community and slowly realizes
they are not what they seemed to be. Midsommar was the movie, I think.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I am generally against regulation but this is an exception.

The social media poison spreads and reinforces by network effects. I.e., the more people using it the more social pressure to use it. You break that norm and suddenly no one cares if you are using social media or not.

TikTok had to spend billions of Chinese government money on ads to get to a network effect.

Hitting reset on a billion users worldwide is a great f u to the social media companies.

 

[p51d007]

I read a story about how movies have gotten longer, more boring etc since a lot of "plots" have to be repeated throughout the movie, since people today (especially the younger ones) have LESS attention span than they use to.
Kids & adults are addicted to the screens, scrolling endlessly on "reels/shorts" videos and what not.
How many times do you see an entire family say eating out, or sitting at a sports event with their heads jammed into their phones?
I think this is a good idea restricting kids until they are older to having 24/7 access to smartphones.
If the parent says "but I need to be able to reach my child in an emergency". Well, at school, unless the child is skipping school, the offices knows where they are. If before/after school, they should be restricted to a "dumb phone" that doesn't have texting, just the ability to make phone calls from specific numbers and emergency services.
Some studies have also shown that excess use of "connected" devices impairs the development of the hippocampus section, and other parts of the brain.

 

[BogdanR]

About time. I would apply the same rules as with alcohol or tobacco.

 

[BogdanR]

Watch them, they all are going to make exceptions for the platforms that project their government's ideology and politics. And since the popular thing in EU right now is progressive liberalism, it benefits no children unless they go around and still use the platforms they like.
That thing known as progressive liberalism is destructive at the very core.
You either are a believer and take it by faith, or you realize it is wrong when you grow older.
It is like in those horror movies when the main character joins a remote community and slowly realizes
they are not what they seemed to be. Midsommar was the movie, I think.

I would take progressive liberalism over fascism ANY DAY OF THE NEXT MILLENIUM.
I'm an stubborn left leaning centrist and disagree with some of the excesses of progressive action, however I disagree with ALL the fascism.
And I can't believe that the answer to neomarxism is neofascism.

 

[bandit8623]

I would take progressive liberalism over fascism ANY DAY OF THE NEXT MILLENIUM.
I'm an stubborn left leaning centrist and disagree with some of the excesses of progressive action, however I disagree with ALL the fascism.
And I can't believe that the answer to neomarxism is neofascism.

all the fascism? would peaceful assembly be one of those views? I can tell you that the Right is not for rioting and non peacefull assembly. types like you like to fit ANYONE on the right as a bootlicker/nazi/fascist. let me guess you think everyone on the right loves jan 6th?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

This is a good thing. But my cynicism suggests that children will move to non-blacklisted, smaller platforms triggering whack-a-mole.

-Ofc, banning things doesn't eliminate them, but it does vastly reduce participation for all but the most diehard individuals.

Fact is people are cheap and lazy and making things inconvenient or expensive cuts down participation big time.

 

[Kirby1]

It would be better to make laws against the kind of intentionally malicious and addictive engagement aspects of these platforms rather than try to limit who can use them.

 

[Str8Shot]

I read a story about how movies have gotten longer, more boring etc since a lot of "plots" have to be repeated throughout the movie, since people today (especially the younger ones) have LESS attention span than they use to.
Kids & adults are addicted to the screens, scrolling endlessly on "reels/shorts" videos and what not.

Very interesting. I had noticed something like this as well in the last 5-10 years. Movies used to be short, around 90 minutes or less, nowadays they're drawn out. I naively thought it was to "offer more value" but I suspect you are right with that article.

Doom-scrolling and the Dopamine-Loops that are created from social media and just simply by CHECKING and MONITORING stuff on the phone is sufficient to induce addictions based on the psychology principle of Random Rewards. Dopamine over time will shrink the hippocampus, due to neuroendocrine effects, as well as continued release affects memory synthesis and retention. If people are doped-up, they can't remember anything except for where's the next "fix" coming from.

"The anticipation of a potential, unpredictable reward activates the brain’s pleasure center (nucleus accumbens) more strongly than consistent, expected rewards. This creates a powerful, addictive loop." (Google Search).

 

[johnsonlam.hk]

It is no difference from US ban alcohol from 1920 to 1933.

 

[RudyBob]

No phones in schools K-12.

 

[GeoffreyA]

Good. It's high time this virus was contained.

 

[NumberNine]

That would be very weird. The sexual age of consent is 15, but social media is a bigger deal?

The social media is not the issue. Connecting to people and sharing content isn't the problem, never has been. This is about the underlying legalities, exploitive technologies, and profit. It should be illegal for any entity to sell data about a child for profit. That is the real child exploitation at play here, in broad daylight, with millions if not billions of complicit parents across the planet helping to aid the process because they just want to put their kid on web and check out for a while. The age of full time employment and full legal adulthood should be the age required for a human to consent to data harvesting and all nonconsensual data harvesting should be a felony paid not with money, but with time, because that is what the peasants pay with. Not a fee, a chunk of their lives.

 

[Lawdog]

I think this is a good law. My children are 15 and 17, and they got their first smartphones at 14. At first, I saw real benefits: they connected with people who shared their passions, discovered new interests, and felt more open to the world. But then the algorithms kicked in. Dopamine took over. They started spending more and more time endlessly scrolling. When I see 7- or 8-year-old kids using a smartphone faster than I do, it genuinely unsettles me. That doesn’t feel normal — or healthy.