CNN reports on a growing phenomenon: banning young children from social media. France is the first European nation to do so, and others are set to follow. This action reflects growing concern about the effect of social media on children’s attention span and exposure to inappropriate content.
French lawmakers voted Tuesday to ban social media use for children under the age of 15, making it the first country in the European Union to introduce such an age limit.
Australia made history late last year when it implemented the first ban on social media for under-16s. The British government announced similar restrictions last month, expected to come into effect next year. Spain, Greece and Denmark are also planning to impose minimum age limits for social media use.
French lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of the bill, which was strongly backedby France’s President Emmanuel Macron. He will now sign it into law.
“Social media will be banned for children under 15 starting this school year,” he posted on X after the vote as he thanked lawmakers for passing the bill.
“The brains of our children and our teenagers are not for sale,” he had said in a video message in January. “The emotions of our children and our teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, neither by American platforms nor by Chinese algorithms.”
Macron had ordered the French government to expedite the bill’s passage through parliament, with the aim of having legislation in place for the beginning of the new next school year in September.
It is not yet clear how the social media sites will verify users’ ages. Australia requires companies to “take reasonable steps” to prevent underage children from opening or keeping accounts, and the French government has promised to implement age controls to back up the law.
Members of the French Senate debate a draft law that aims to ban social media access for children under 15, in Paris, France, on March 31, 2026. Firas Abdullah/EPA/Shutterstock
Earlier versions of the legislation also included proposals for a ban on advertising promoting social media to children, including by influencers, and to require advertisements for social media platforms to carry the warning: “Dangerous products for children under 15.” However, these plans did not make it into the final bill.
The new law will be enforced by Arcom, France’s audiovisual and digital communications regulator. It is expected to apply to all the major platforms.
According to Arcom, children aged 12 to 17 in France spend an average of 1 hour and 21 minutes a day on TikTok. The regulator says the platform’s recommendation algorithm tends to promote the most “extreme” content, exposing teenagers to a continuous stream of anxiety-inducing or otherwise harmful videos.
Social media companies say they already take steps to protect children from some kinds of content.
‘Real change of atmosphere’
The proposal for a ban was welcomed by many French parents earlier this year.
“I think it’s great,” mother-of-six Geraldine Delacroix told CNN in March. “Now I’m waiting to see how it’s workable, but in any case, it’s better than nothing,” she added, noting that children could often get around existing parental controls. “Even if we block, they find ways to get around it,” she said.
In her work as a pediatrician, Delacroix has seen a growing distrust of smartphones and social media over the past decade among her patients’ families. “People are tense (about smartphones),” she said. “There’s been a real change of atmosphere.”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
As a traveling K–5 theatre teacher, I was largely insulated from the conflicts that social media created among students. However, a fifth-grade teacher told me that social media had become a significant source of conflict at his school.
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We know how much the western world cares about children because we do things like bomb girls’ schools and children’s hospitals.
Meanwhile, back at home, we’ve created a world that is “too dangerous” for kids to be out playing in the neighborhood without a parent within arm’s reach (while the parents are not available to be within arm’s reach because they’re all working a million hours a week to put food on the table). We’ve made schools into drill and kill factories where we’ve eliminated any opportunity for social interaction or exploration (art, music, PE, recess, etc.). So social media is the one opportunity kids have to interact with their peers and now we want to take away that too. What we do to children is grotesque and criminal.
Meanwhile, even if you’re not a child, this will affect you because you’ll have to prove it. In order to use social media (and, later, the internet at all), you’ll have to upload a photo ID with other location, demographic and biometric data on it which will make it easier for corporations and governments to track you, spy on you and advertise to you. Funny how every increased means of control starts with “think of the children!”
Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, etc. didn’t know the half of it.
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Another good example of how much we really care about children: https://nysfocus.com/2026/07/14/new-york-humanoid-robot-teacher-salamanca-school-district
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I know a gentleman who used to be a minister in a very upscale neighborhood. His church was full of big pocketbooks and the corresponding large egos that accompany pocketbooks. His lengthy tenure in that church is testament to his consummate skill in communication and diplomacy. He tried social media, and opted out. He thought it too powerful.
Not to brag, but I have been more successful. Still, my own success should not blind me (by extension others) to the notion that those without frontal lobe development can possibly deal with this powerful mode of communication.
I almost think we should be concentrating most of our educational effort toward making students aware of the nature of social media. It’s not like it’s going away.
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