CopenhagenVon der Leyen proposed reversing the parental-consent default.
A panel reports by July on rules requiring platforms to prove child safety, not parents to opt children out.
France is targeting its own under-15 ban by September; EU legislation could follow the same month.
Sources: RTE.ie, BBC, CNA, Anadolu Ajansı, The Peninsula
THE DEFAULT FLIP
Most online child-safety regimes since COPPA (US, 1998) put the burden on parents: opt your child out, configure the settings, monitor the use. Reversing the default — platforms must prove safety before children access — shifts the liability from households to companies with billion-euro legal budgets.
THE AUSTRALIAN PRECEDENT
Australia passed a world-first under-16 social media ban in late 2024, with enforcement landing in 2025. Platforms — not parents, not children — face fines up to AUD 50 million for failing to keep minors off. The EU is watching the rollout closely; France is moving in parallel with its own under-15 framework.
THE AGE VERIFICATION PROBLEM
Proving a user's age online is technically hard without sacrificing privacy. Options are credit-card checks (excludes the poor), government ID upload (surveillance risk), or AI face-estimation (error rates of 2-3 years, with worse accuracy on non-white faces). Every method trades one harm for another.
THE DSA SCAFFOLDING
The EU's Digital Services Act, in force since 2024, already requires Very Large Online Platforms to assess systemic risks to minors. The new proposal would convert that risk-assessment duty into a hard prohibition — a much sharper legal instrument than the audit-and-disclose regime currently in force.
WHO THE RULE ACTUALLY HITS
TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat draw the political fire, but the rule extends to YouTube, gaming chat platforms (Discord, Roblox), and any service whose recommendation system pushes content to minors. The regulatory perimeter is wider than the headlines suggest.
THE FREE-SPEECH COUNTERWEIGHT
The US First Amendment has so far blocked similar federal laws — NetChoice v. Paxton and related cases ruled that requiring age verification burdens adults' speech rights. Europe operates under different doctrine: the European Court of Human Rights treats child protection as a compelling state interest that routinely overrides expression claims.