Greece to ban social media for children under 15 starting next year

[midian182]

What just happened? Another country is banning young people from using social media. Starting next year, children under 15 in Greece will be prohibited from the likes of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Somewhat ironically, the video by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announcing the move was posted to TikTok.

Mitsotakis called the legislation, which is expected to pass this summer, "difficult but necessary." He started the video by referencing the phrase that became hugely popular among young people last year: "6-7 – Now that I have your attention."

As reported by The New York Times, the PM said that parents are worried that their children, who spend a lot of time on their phones, are not sleeping properly and are becoming anxious more easily.

He added that many young people say they are tired of social media comparisons, comments, and the constant pressure to be online all the time.

"Greece will be among the first countries to take such an initiative," Mitsotakis said. "I am certain, however, that it will not be the last. Our ⁠goal is to push the European Union in this direction as well."

@kyriakosmitsotakis_

Αποφασίσαμε να προχωρήσουμε σε κάτι δύσκολο αλλά απαραίτητο: να απαγορεύσουμε την πρόσβαση στα social media σε παιδιά κάτω των 15 ετών.

♬ original sound - Kyriakos Mitsotakis

Mitsotakis did not name the platforms, though they're expected to be the usual suspects that are part of similar laws in other countries. Officials later confirmed that the ban would not apply to messaging apps.

Mitsotakis went on to say that that the Greek government does not want to distance children from technology, noting that it can be a source of inspiration, knowledge, and creativity. But he warned that the addictive design of certain applications that push users into spending more time on their screens deprives kids of their innocence and freedom.

Under the new measures, digital platforms would be required to verify the age of users. Any that fail to comply would face fines under the European Union's Digital Services Act.

Another element is something we've not seen in other countries with age-related social media bans. Parents need to download a state-backed app called Kids Wallet onto a child's device. This is linked to a parent's account to restrict access. The app is already being used to limit how much time kids spend on their devices and prohibit the purchase of age-restricted goods.

These types of social media bans are appearing in more countries. Australia was the first, and France, Indonesia, Austria, Spain, and the UK have since introduced similar restrictions or are considering them.

In the US, several states have their own social media bans or restrictions. Some think a nationwide ban could eventually happen, especially after Meta was recently found liable for harm to children in a social media addiction trial.

Permalink to story:

Greece to ban social media for children under 15 starting next year

 

[Megalomaniac]

I applaud the people of Greece, Australia, France, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Slovenia, Spain, UK, and especially China for taking these necessary actions.

If these parents are too weak to do what is necessary, steps must be taken to ensure that their negligence can not impact the mental/physical health of others.

I even give props to Governor Hochul for banning smartphones from NY schools - even though I know the reason for finally doing it isn't in line with the reasons I believed it should have been done decades ago.

 

[adaplect]

The children in the photo are definitely not Greek

 

[Squid Surprise]

First step to a dictatorship: deprive a minority of its rights. Children are easy as they don’t get a vote anyways…

Next up, we start giving the Jews yellow stars to wear?

Slippery slope…

 

[Art C]

Honestly, Facebook should be banned for all ages worldwide.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I applaud the people of Greece, Australia, France, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Slovenia, Spain, UK, and especially China for taking these necessary actions.

If these parents are too weak to do what is necessary, steps must be taken to ensure that their negligence can not impact the mental/physical health of others.

I even give props to Governor Hochul for banning smartphones from NY schools - even though I know the reason for finally doing it isn't in line with the reasons I believed it should have been done decades ago.

Gos forbid we hold parents responsible for not parenting their children.......

 

[JMGuy]

First step to a dictatorship: deprive a minority of its rights. Children are easy as they don’t get a vote anyways…

Next up, we start giving the Jews yellow stars to wear?

Slippery slope…

FFS. Because comparing the forcing of Jews to wear identifying symbols and the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and extermination of a people under Nazi Germany persecution policies doesn’t tastelessly trivialize the Holocaust; a completely different in scale, intent, and moral reality to the regulating of kids’ access to apps. Totally the same thing.

 

[Squid Surprise]

FFS. Because comparing the forcing of Jews to wear identifying symbols and the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and extermination of a people under Nazi Germany persecution policies doesn’t tastelessly trivialize the Holocaust; a completely different in scale, intent, and moral reality to the regulating of kids’ access to apps. Totally the same thing.

Slippery slope is what I said. And if you start persecuting ANY defenseless minority - and children are the most defenseless - you open the door to everything else.

I don’t trivialize the Holocaust - my grandparents went through it (and none of their siblings survived it) - but I think it’s important for people to LEARN from it!!

When you start making blanket statements that certain groups can’t handle something, or don’t deserve something, etc, you open the door to the same kind of thinking that caused the holocaust.

Children, Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc are all individuals and should NOT be treated as if they are all the same!

Some children are jerks - and maybe their parents shouldn’t let them have a phone at all… some children are quite responsible- and their parents have trusted them to use social media properly - and they do! Why is the government stepping in?

 

[Aolish]

Agreed, I think this should be common sense and implemented across the board.

 

[Endymio]

Slippery slope is what I said. And if you start persecuting ANY defenseless minority - and children are the most defenseless - you open the door to everything else.

Protection is not persecution. Do you believe 10 year old should be able to get facial tattoos, smoke cigarettes, and down bottles of 100-proof vodka? Yes or no.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Protection is not persecution. Do you believe 10 year old should be able to get facial tattoos, smoke cigarettes, and down bottles of 100-proof vodka? Yes or no.

I believe their parents should decide if they can or can’t - wouldn’t group all 10-year-olds in the same batch.

I bet some Māori parents would say yes to the facial tattoos…

When you allow the state to make decisions affecting an entire defenceless minority group - and children fit that to a tee - you are treading in dangerous waters.

Remember, all of these children will become adults (well, the ones who survive - which should be most of them), who will determine the future of our society. Do we really want them growing up thinking that the state is unfair and out to get them? What magically happens when someone turns 18 (or 19, or 21) that makes them superior to the person they were a week before?

 

[NumberNine]

I agree with keeping kids away from social media, as corporations are just as predatory as their users, if not more, but...

Let's not sidestep the obvious fact that a good old fashioned pearl-clutching moral panic is always good for clawing back freedoms and feeding the highly profitable surveillance industry. Always tech comes into play. Always gathering more data, always selling it, always predatory.

 

[Endymio]

Let's not sidestep the obvious fact that a good old fashioned pearl-clutching moral panic is always good for clawing back freedoms and feeding the highly profitable surveillance industry... Always gathering more data, always selling it, always predatory.

It's truly astonishing how reliably wrong some people are on all issues. Banning children from social media is the exact opposite of "gathering and selling more data."

Nor are children being banned because "corporations are predatory", but because of the intense psychological pressures from those children interacting with so many faceless Internet strangers.

I bet some Māori parents would say yes to the facial tattoos…
Do we really want [children] growing up thinking that the state is unfair and out to get them? What magically happens when someone turns 18 (or 19, or 21) that makes them superior to the person they were a week before?

A fair point about the Maori, but by your logic, we should allow 9 year olds to vote, join the military, and agree to marriage. Age standards do exist for good reason. And while children do vary dramatically in emotional and mental maturity, until we can quantify this exactly via bran scan, hard age limits are the best we can do.

 

[Anton Longshot]

Honestly, Facebook should be banned for all ages worldwide.

Let me guess...YOU don't use FaceBook.
I use it all the time to stay in touch with family and friends all over the globe and consider it pretty much a godsend.
Killing the sh*t features is NOT very difficult.

That said, I do not think shutting down the phone junkies' social media access will turn these useless "distracteés" into normal people. The problem lies deeper than that. They spend a lot of time running/hiding from the aspects of their life they find unpleasant (thereby guaranteeing that those issues don't get fixed...).
It's probably do-able to teach them how to change their behavior BUT good luck telling them that they should.

 

[m4a4]

Banning children from social media is the exact opposite of "gathering and selling more data."

...How do you think this ban will be enforced by the govt? They will get a surveillance company to gather data to confirm compliance. And/or companies that need to implement the ban will do so.

If you just took a small step back, you would see what was meant...

 

[m4a4]

Yeahhhh.... looks more like a trojan horse to get digital ID going than an actual concern for the children to me...

 

[Squid Surprise]

A fair point about the Maori, but by your logic, we should allow 9 year olds to vote, join the military, and agree to marriage. Age standards do exist for good reason. And while children do vary dramatically in emotional and mental maturity, until we can quantify this exactly via bran scan, hard age limits are the best we can do.

Ideally, you’d have educated parents who educated their children - and could decide when they are ready to vote, get married, etc… perhaps a national “test” that one would have to pass before being able to do certain things - kind of like what we have for driving.

I understand that hard age limits are more practical for things - but they must be acknowledged as being arbitrary and should only be applied to certain things as well.

“Social Media” being banned to anyone under a certain age crosses this line. Freedom of choice exists - or at least it should.

One’s freedoms tend to end when they conflict with someone else’s: so I DON’T have the “freedom” to shoot someone since that conflicts with their right to live… but why are we taking away children’s “rights” to social media?

 

[Endymio]

why are we taking away children’s “rights” to social media?

I can make a clear case that social media is more harmful for children than alcohol. Every industrialized nation in the world has a clearly defined legal principle that the state can act to protect children in cases where the parent does not.

I'm a hardcore libertarian myself -- for adults. But in the case of children, the rules are different. In a country where children can't drink, smoke tobacco, manage certain financial accounts or operate certain vehicles until age 21, I'm perfectly fine with banning their social media access until then too.

A FAR bigger violation is the federal law that children cannot buy firearms until age 21, as that right is constitutionally mandated. There is no constitutional right to social media.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I can make a clear case that social media is more harmful for children than alcohol. Every industrialized nation in the world has a clearly defined legal principle that the state can act to protect children in cases where the parent does not.

The key there is “where the parent does not”…

I'm a hardcore libertarian myself -- for adults. But in the case of children, the rules are different. In a country where children can't drink, smoke tobacco, manage certain financial accounts or operate certain vehicles until age 21, I'm perfectly fine with banning their social media access until then too. If that seems excessive, then the program is with the age chosen to be defined as "adulthood", not the principle of protection.

I believe we have many dissociated youth in many nations because of attitudes like this. We don’t allow “age discrimination “ when hiring - but we do allow it for everything when it comes to “children”.

Age limits are also arbitrary and sometimes crazy… we allow someone who is 19 to vote and serve in the military - but many states won’t let them drink alcohol… or serve as politicians? So is a 19-year-old an adult? They get tried as one if they commit a crime…

 

[Hecate91]

Interesting how those who usually complain about too much government regulation are for governments to step in and do parenting instead of the parents.
This is quite a slippery slope towards requiring an ID to access social media, because how else will they know you're an adult, and they'll tell you it's for security and protecting the children.

 

[Vixiy]

They should ban the harmful designs of the platforms and teach digital literacy in schools instead.

What do they expect to happen when someone turns 15? That it's magically safe for them?

My brother and I have been concerned about the impact social media is having on our father, he's nearly 70.

 

[Megalomaniac]

Interesting how those who usually complain about too much government regulation are for governments to step in and do parenting instead of the parents.
This is quite a slippery slope towards requiring an ID to access social media, because how else will they know you're an adult, and they'll tell you it's for security and protecting the children.

ID was always required when I was a kid. I was born in 80'. As I grew into the internet, there was a paywall behind credit cards. Then it suddenly disappeared.

I WELCOME IT BACK!

 

[p51d007]

GOOD! There need to be restrictions on (un)social media. Heck, what they should do is NOT allow anyone under the age of 16 (using the USA age restrictions for driving) to have a smartphone. DUMB phones only. No texting. The world got along just fine without parents having 24/7 access to their kids. Yes, the world isn't what it was when I was a kid, but still, these things are destroying children. They are stuck looking at screens all the time, not getting out "having fun", getting their fingers dirty, exploring, engaging with others.
Plus, all the garbage on phones is restricting their ability to grow mentally and their minds are not "grown up" until their 20's anyway.
Yeah, I know...go away boomer but still there needs to be a rethink on children having access to smartphones. The parents need to be parents and stop letting the screen being the babysitter.

 

[p51d007]

The key there is “where the parent does not”…

I believe we have many dissociated youth in many nations because of attitudes like this. We don’t allow “age discrimination “ when hiring - but we do allow it for everything when it comes to “children”.

Age limits are also arbitrary and sometimes crazy… we allow someone who is 19 to vote and serve in the military - but many states won’t let them drink alcohol… or serve as politicians? So is a 19-year-old an adult? They get tried as one if they commit a crime…

If it was me, age of voting would not only be restricted to the age of 21, there should be a SIMPLE 10 question Constitution test too! If you are ignorant, you shouldn't be allowed to vote! /s
But the voting age should be 21, not 18. And if it is raised, then being allowed in the military should be restricted to age 21 also. What's fair for one is fair for the other.

 

[scoffer]

The children in the photo are definitely not Greek

Have you not seen the number of illegal immigrants that have been landing on Greek shorelines these past few years?