EU experts to start work on social media ban for children

An EU expert group is to begin work this week on whether to ban social media for children with the aim of coming up with recommendations by the summer, Brussels said Tuesday.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen will attend the consultative panel’s inaugural meeting on Thursday, having launched the initiative in September, the European Commission said.

Brussels is considering setting a minimum age to access social media after Australia in December required TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and other top sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, or face heavy fines.

The EU panel will hold a series of meetings to then “advise the President and the commission as a whole on potential additional measures to put in place to protect our kids online,” said commission spokesman Thomas Regnier.

The commission did not say who was on the panel.

Brussels is keeping a close eye on how successful the Australian ban proves, with legal challenges already filed against it.

France, along with Denmark, Greece and Spain, has been pushing for similar action at EU level.

Von der Leyen has advocated going further with a minimum age limit, but first wants to hear from experts on what approach the 27-nation bloc should take.

EU efforts to rein in the influence of big tech firms, most of which are based in the United States, have angered the administration of President Donald Trump.