Von der Leyen proposes no social media under 13 and no personal account under 15

Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on 16 September that the Commission will propose a bloc-wide rule of no social media under 13 and no personal account under 15. The vehicle is an EU Kids Act, due to be presented in full on 17 September with Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen. Children aged 13 and 14 would get “mini accounts” set up and watched by a parent or guardian, with limited features and a cap of one hour a day. From 15, a more independent account would be allowed. Platforms would owe a “safe design” duty up to 18.

“It is not about our minors accessing social media. It is about when and how do we allow social media to access minors,” she said in the State of the Union speech. She said young people in the Union now spend four to six hours a day on screens. “I am aware that many perceive the power of Big Tech as overwhelming and impossible to roll back. I disagree.” She listed three things the Union would refuse to accept: addictive features, children being pulled into more extreme content, and girls’ photographs being used for AI-generated sexual images.

The Act would reverse the burden of proof. Platforms would have to show that their products are safe for minors rather than wait for a regulator to prove harm. Endless scrolling would be barred for the protected age band. Age checks would use a data-light system; the Commission has already floated a “mini-wallet” for that job, which member states only partly accepted. A separate Digital Fairness Act, due in the autumn, is meant to attack addictive design more broadly.

The speech does not make law. The 27 governments and the Parliament have to debate and vote. That process can run for years. Several member states have already written national age limits. Australia last year barred under-16s from social media, the first country to do so. Brussels is trying to replace that patchwork with one floor for the single market.

The political risk sits in Washington as much as in Silicon Valley. President Donald Trump has attacked European tech rules as a tax on US firms. An age-gate that requires identity checks on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube accounts across 450 million people will be read in that frame. Enforcement will also collide with privacy law. A reliable age check is hard to build without collecting more data on children, which is the opposite of what child-privacy rules demand.

Von der Leyen’s line is now on the record: 13 for any account, 15 for an account in the child’s own name, one hour for the years in between, and a duty on the company to prove safety. Whether that text survives the Council and the Parliament is the work that starts on Thursday.