- 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.
- 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...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822539
by King-Aaron
3 subcomments
- 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.
by academia_hack
0 subcomment
- 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-...
by mary-ext
14 subcomments
- 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.
- It's a good start. Ban it for all under 30s and over 60s.
by terespuwash
4 subcomments
- 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.
- 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
- Governments just want to normalize ID verification for using online platforms. Children's safety is always the go-to cry for assimilating more power.
- 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
- I think this is a good thing. Social media should be treated a bit like drugs, with regards to both production and consumption.
- Not yet passed, waiting for senate approval.
- 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.
- 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.
by SilverElfin
1 subcomments
- Violation of privacy under the pretense of protecting children
by presmith09
0 subcomment
- 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.
- 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.
by dyauspitr
1 subcomments
- Good. We need more of these laws with more teeth.
- 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.
by krainboltgreene
6 subcomments
- 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.
by booleandilemma
1 subcomments
- 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.
by heavyset_go
1 subcomments
- 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...
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