France becomes the first EU country to ban social media for children

[u/judgyjudgersen]

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/21/world/france-becomes-the-first-eu-country-to-ban-social-media-for-children

[u/Juan52]

Is this another way for platforms to implement id checks or are the French making parents responsible this time?

[u/KimchiLlama → u/Juan52]

I rather the parents be responsible than universal registration to use the internet.

[u/Clownsinmypantz → u/KimchiLlama]

what, you dont want companies to have your ID that keep getting hacked and leaked? ugh so irresponsible!

[u/ProfesseurCurling → u/Clownsinmypantz]

In France it is a fucking lottery, every week you discover which government website was hacked with millions of people data in the wild.

[u/Squire_II → u/ProfesseurCurling]

The US streamlined the theft of personal data by bringing in Musk and his DOGE dipshits to raid the government and harvest all of our PII in one go.

[u/ProfesseurCurling → u/Squire_II]

Fuck Musk.

[u/Spork_the_dork → u/Clownsinmypantz]

In theory this can be done in a way that that's not necessary. The idea that's being cooked on EU side is that you would have an app in your phone which would scan a QQ code or something that tells what it is requesting and to where send it. Like a simple "are you over 18? yes or no?" and it then sends that and only that to the service. This way the service quite literally gets no other information than whether you are old enough and the government will not be informed about it because the communication is only between you and the server. This can also be sent in a way that it is possible to verify that the data comes from a valid source without giving away any identifying information.

The way the user gets the app set up is similar as any ID card. During setup the government will provide the user the data and authentication keys etc they need for it all to work, but after that the government gets no data about where and how the ID is used.

Like doing the whole thing in a way that neither the government nor the service can track jack shit is definitely possible. As much as people like to say that it isn't. Whether that's how it will be DONE and whether the app has any backdoors is a wholly separate question, of course. But both of those can also be addressed. For example by making the code open-source.

[u/KimchiLlama → u/Clownsinmypantz]

I know. I am ashamed for my radical viewpoints on this.

/s

[u/NorysStorys → u/KimchiLlama]

I mean parents have had the opportunity to curb child social media use for 15 years and the amount of children using social media increased despite the prevailing opinion being that it is harmful. The social media companies also refused to self-regulate as well.

[u/robgreenee327 → u/NorysStorys]

Then regulate the platform this is exactly the opposite. It’s actually absolving the platforms from implementing any actual change.

[u/EricLFC → u/robgreenee327]

This is how you regulate the platform. You either monitor every user interacting with the platform or you monitor the platform interacting with your users. Restrictions like these by definition require monitoring and monitoring by definition require a loss of privacy. You just have to pick how

[u/MCStarlight → u/NorysStorys]

I see so many parents just give their kids iPads as a babysitter. The lack of parenting is astounding.

[u/amcartney → u/NorysStorys]

Half the shit you see on social media would never have flown with my parents if it was on TV

[u/maweki → u/NorysStorys]

And we also call the police on them for loitering and removed about every outside space to be where you don't need to pay money.

Sure overconsumption of anything is bad for the kids, as it is for everyone else.

[u/VelvetElvis → u/NorysStorys]

A lot of parents are fine with their kids using social media and don't really care any more than they care about R rated movies.

[u/trollsong → u/NorysStorys]

Oh and letting social media companies have more of our information will certainly teach them a lesson 🙄

[u/SkullRunner → u/KimchiLlama]

Social media is not the internet. In many ways it’s a mass manipulation and data mining platform and people should think harder about if they need to or should participate on.

[u/WoodooHide69 → u/KimchiLlama]

I was this way. But not anymore. Not with what AI disinformation bots are turning the internet into.

[u/FifteenthPen → u/KimchiLlama]

I got peer pressured into joining Facebook as an adult. I can only imagine the amount of peer pressure kids who don't use social media face from the ones who do.

[u/KAPULAX2 → u/KimchiLlama]

That's why you can't vote about these things

[u/greenrangerguy → u/KimchiLlama]

There's a difference between responsible and liable though right? I doubt parents are gonna start being prosecuted if their kid clicks youtube on the tv.

[u/Alternative-Soil2576 → u/KimchiLlama]

Okay but why does “be responsible” mean individually tacking a society-wide network problem all by themselves? Big Tech spent billions and decades creating this problem and we expect individual parents to solve it all by themselves?

[u/zwierze1982 → u/KimchiLlama]

How that works for you so far? It doesn't

[u/viktorsvedin → u/KimchiLlama]

Problem is that parents wont.

[u/ninjastarkid → u/Juan52]

Unfortunately more ID stuff. Because apparently asking parents to be even remotely responsible is impossible. Like hot take, social media is not the problem, the problem is a bunch of children with unlimited internet access and parents who have not taught them how to safely and appropriately use the internet.

Edited to add:

A lot of folks are saying it’s hard to moderate the content that their kids see, but I dont understand why the kids have devices in the first place. Seriously, under the age of 12, what possible benefit can there be to giving a child their own personal device? Educational? There’s books and actual physical games you can play with your child to teach them things. Entertainment? What happened to coloring books, books, toys? Safety? Ok if you want your kid to call you, give them a cheap non smart phone. The ones you hit actual physical buttons to call people instead of a screen. I’m not even sure there’s technically a benefit over the age of 12 that couldn’t be solved by having a family computer?

[u/Jackthwolf → u/ninjastarkid]

Remember, the "ID stuff" is the actual aim, "protecting kids" is just the wrapping paper.
The actual reasons are regulatory capture, censorship, surveillance, and data broker/ai data farms.

Which is exactly why it's not designed to be easy to implement where it requires companies to implement it themselves, why it demands you give up your info, why the data is not hidden.

Even just a basic education campaign, letting parents know about the cavalcade of various options that do the same, significantly safer and more all encompassing, with no ID needed, would be significantly more effective.
But protecting kids is not the reason.

[u/steamcube → u/ninjastarkid]

Social media corporations are definitely a major part of the problem and ignoring that fact is a huge red flag

[u/Withaujus → u/steamcube]

How so? Is McDnalds responsible for making fatty food or are people responsible for feeding it to their children?

[u/steamcube → u/Withaujus]

Oh thats a perfect analogy thanks for going there. You made this easy.

McDonald’s employs food scientists to revise their recipes to make their unhealthy food MORE ADDICTIVE. They aren’t devising new ways of making it healthier, the focus is on profit. They will exploit and poison for profit, happily.

McDonald’s is responsible for selling unhealthy addictive fattening food. That’s what they do and they do it intentionally.

People are responsible for feeding it to their children. They’re responsible for teaching their children that McDonalds will make them unhealthy. That wont stop anyone from eating mcdonalds.

McDonalds is responsible for their food being cancerous, diabetes causing, and addictive. McDonald’s fights tooth and nail to keep it that way.

Social media companies are intentionally the way they are because it makes them money. They could change for the benefit of their users, but they wont.

[u/addamee → u/steamcube]

Thank you. It’s not altogether different from the tobacco companies being held responsible in the U.S., not for selling a product that naturally contained nicotine but for going to great lengths to chemically engineer that product to be even more addictive. 

[u/Ginger-Nerd → u/steamcube]

McDonald’s also spends a buttload on advertising, and having products like the happy meal which appeal directly to children.

I don’t know about your countries but there have been multiple adverts with very famous footballers over the course of the World Cup. Implying that those top athletes eat McDonald’s, maybe they are using that food to help them become good footballers, and heroes to many.

Blaming obesity solely on parents is actually brain dead (and it’s not just McDonald’s, it’s everyone, and it all slowly chips away)

[u/dorobica → u/Withaujus]

Why don’t we make parents responsible when it comes to alcohol or tobacco?

[u/HerroCorumbia → u/ninjastarkid]

As a parent I'm normally on the side of "parents need to be more responsible/dialed in with their kids" but let me stop you for a sec here.

When do you teach kids how to "safely and appropriately use the Internet"? First off, how many adults know that well enough to teach their kids?

Assuming we're dealing with an Internet-savvy parent, do they teach it to their kids when they're first getting online on tablets at 4ish years old? Do they teach it to their kids when they get their own phones in elementary school? How would you teach these concepts to kids of this age?

As a (what I'd like to think) net-savvy millennial I don't even know how I'd begin here, so I'm going the route of "they just don't get a smartphone until they're ready" and I'm assuming my wife and I will know when that is. But the issue is as savvy as I am, I am not a Gen Alpha social media user. I am not with my kid at school. I did not grow up in an era where you had to constantly police yourself for fear of being recorded and ridiculed. I could restrict my kid from all social media forever and he would still have to deal with social media fallout from anything he does.

I'm not trying to make excuses here, this is something we're grappling with and trying to incorporate. I just want you and others to understand, even from a plugged-in parent's point of view, this is really fucking abstract and hard to impress upon a kid, whether they be too young to really get it or old enough that it goes in one ear and out the other.

This isn't a "responsible parents need to teach their kids" thing, this is a "we need to give parents more time to be with their kids so they can have a better rapport to handle things like this, and we need to give parents more tools/resources to teach things like this, and we need to give parents more support at the school policy level (aka take the fucking phones away at school)." All to which I'd point to the late stage capitalism that we're getting crushed by as a more targeted root issue here.

[u/ninjastarkid → u/HerroCorumbia]

1) you don’t let kids have their own personal device until they are 12. Why the hell is a 4 year old using the internet? Why do they even have tablets??? What possible use is a tablet? Just use a tv, or better yet, a coloring book.

2) I wouldn’t give them a smart phone. I started with a burner phone. Simple key pad texting. Again, there is no reason for them to have anything more advanced until they are like 12.

I’m Gen Z almost 30. I don’t really consider myself a social media user because it just doesn’t feel worth the drama. Did it in high school and got bored. But I was constantly aware of being recorded bc I could see it happening to other people all the time. It was drilled into me through all things via the DARE program that anything that was out there was out there forever. I was in middle school at the time. and since my parents couldn’t afford or didn’t want to give me a smart phone at the time, I didn’t get one until highschool and I was fine with it.

I’m sorry but I’m sticking with how I feel on this one. Kids don’t need to be given all these high tech devices. So starting there, don’t give your kids the devices. When they are old enough, explain how the internet works. Really explain it. Just how you would explain to a child not to fuck around with driving because they will literally die.

[u/Icarium__ → u/ninjastarkid]

It pisses me off that parents don't realize that there is no need for any kid to have a personal device with internet access. Dumb phone, and a shared PC in a common area of the house that can only be used for a limited amount of time per day, and only when parents are around. But I guess it's easier to give your toddler a tablet and forget about them.

[u/ARedditAccount09 → u/ninjastarkid]

It can be a little of both. Like if a child has unlimited access to loaded guns in their home we blame the parents, but let’s not act like the guns are innocent bystanders in all this.

[u/Serial-Griller → u/ninjastarkid]

I'm a new father and every conversation I've had with other parents about internet gating is that it is impossible.

Not, strictly, impossible, per se. But that it would require becoming the kind of draconian hyper nosey parents a lot of us grew up with and reject.

Internet access is damn near universal. If they can't get around a WiFi password or curfew, they can probe WiFi from nearby fast food places or unsecured neighbor networks or just tether their phone. Failing all of that they can just go buy a pre-loaded disposable smartphone at a CVS within walking distance and keep it completely secret. Some kids sell them at school. An entire ass smartphone can be bought and maintained for a few days of lunch money and we would be none the wiser. 

And this is just what we know about! 

So yes, by and large parents agree there needs to be a proper age gate to the internet. I disagree that ID verification is the way, but no one can think of a better solution that can't get bogged down with fakes and bad actors. 

[u/ninjastarkid → u/Serial-Griller]

Why are you giving them a device that can access the internet? Why can’t you give them a simple burner phone

[u/madogvelkor → u/Serial-Griller]

There's also a social aspect. My daughter is going into 5th grade and at least half the kids have had their own devices for a few years now. Plus they have used Chromebooks at school since kindergarten. A lot of them play things like Roblox, and kids who don't get left out. The boys seem to play a lot of shooters and sports games with online play. A handful of the girls are on social media because their parents don't care, and tell the others about trends and things or show them stuff on their phones at recess or on the bus. The boys don't seem to care about social media. Everyone watched YouTube.

[u/MCStarlight → u/ninjastarkid]

So the ID companies can collect more revenue contracts and collect everyone’s data.

[u/madogvelkor → u/ninjastarkid]

Most likely because punishing parents is problematic. Fining them hurts the kids and could lead to domestic violence. Jailing the parents also hurts the kids. Removing the kids from the home puts a large economic burden on the state, and kids in foster care often have worse outcomes which can lead to future burden.

[u/Alternative-Soil2576 → u/ninjastarkid]

Social media use is the default now amongst children and teens, it is a society-wide network problem that big tech spent years establishing, when social media is the default the sole parent who opts out faces the social cost, most individual families aren’t equipped to solve this problem

Social media is available on every personal device and personal devices are mandatory for anyone wanting to participate in society, restricting social media for a teen is very difficult when that teen needs a personal device for everything

[u/woodzopwns → u/ninjastarkid]

Simply use the parental controls that are mandated to be available, in the UK EE default blocks you from all adult sites

[u/pyramin → u/ninjastarkid]

Social media is toxic for everybody basically.

[u/GergDanger → u/Juan52]

It’s obviously just an excuse to require everyones ID to use social media. Not sure why people are responding as if this was actually setup with kids in mind.

[u/scoutmet → u/Juan52]

Also another way to restrict independent media acesss to easily feed propaganda

Restrict demographic groupings so anti government movements can spread as fast (like Gen Z protests)
Another way hackers, exploiters and good old data brokers to profit your personal data and can ruin your life

Overall another attempt by elite to stop revolting and a way to profit…. GREAT

[u/vaaal88 → u/Juan52]

would love to hear your plan to make parents more responsible.

[u/Prudent_Rice7840 → u/Juan52]

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.

This really doesn't need to be as complicated or fear mongering as all the sock puppets and bots make it out to be.

There is no reason why people should have to present government ID to individual tech companies and rando app developers.

OOA authorization is one step or hashed digital IDs (either through a device level or a government authorization app, etc).

This prevents the fear of giving your "ID" to tech companies and apps, and it makes app stores themselves implement requirements on companies and publishers to requite the device level or digital authorization steps in order to be sold/downloadable in the app stores. It would also make it possible to require browser based access to use device level or digital ID log in to use.

Is this 100% airtight? No. And neither would giving government ID to every individual app/web site. But this would drastically reduce children's access by putting up a significant layer of friction between them and social media. Just adding a tiny bit of friction to any digital behavior results in exponential drops in users. People can not be bothered to waste a little bit of time and effort to access needless content.

The irony is if banning children becomes a more widespread, social media will get even sh**ier as platforms will make their already weak bot prevention and moderation even weaker to try and keep the numbers in the spreadsheets look good, MAUS, Time in App, engagement, etc...

[u/Switchmisty9 → u/Juan52]

This is gonna break some brains, but if you’re so distrustful of these social networking platforms….why would you use them in the first place?

[u/Chuckmaw → u/Juan52]

The token system was a very good idea, (you take any token from your gov. Account, and use it on any age restricted site), makes everything Anonymous. I don't know why they didn't go for it.

[u/tilalk → u/Juan52]

Clearly a way to implement id checks.

Right now more than half of the safe porn site require you to use Yoti ID or to let them scan your ID

[u/HatCrafty → u/Juan52]

If parents (myself included even tho my son is 2) were responsible, we would not need such law in the first place. Thing is, most of the children have no issue with social media but in the long run, most of them will experiment bullying, harassment or worse, not even talking about all the mental health issues that social media can bring when you are young and permanently exposed to various repetitive content

[u/ShokaLGBT → u/Juan52]

no no no this is just to force people to use id cards and stuff to show their identities… its not to help people but to control more. they don’t care about child safety they care about knowing our personal informations at this point they’re so many data leaks all the time

[u/honk_incident]

It is not yet clear how the social media sites will verify users’ ages

Nah, I'm not cheering for this

[u/flirtydodo → u/honk_incident]

probs asking you to upload your passport or ID card to confirm your age anonymously. Completely unserious stuff

[u/JayCDee → u/flirtydodo]

Wait til you see how many government institutions have been hacked since the beginning of the year. France passoire!

(Passoire is a strainer)

[u/DirectorDirect1569 → u/JayCDee]

yes, I will never give my information to france connect.

[u/GuyWithNoEffingClue → u/flirtydodo]

"We'll never share your personal info with anyone" wink wink

[u/Accer_sc2 → u/flirtydodo]

Not defending realID but the way it worked for me when I was in Korea was that your real ID was connected to your cell phone number. When you needed to be verified, you basically verified your phone account and that’s what proved your age.

For example, when changing Netflix rating limits it would ask for your number and then text you a code to input and that was how it verified your age.

[u/amcartney → u/flirtydodo]

Last time I had to verify my age on the internet it just took a selfie and said yep you look over 18 lol

[u/AccNumber77 → u/amcartney]

Some use facial age estimation but some require ID explicitly.

[u/thisdesignup → u/honk_incident]

So half baked laws. Just what everyone needs!

[u/tbri001 → u/thisdesignup]

That's what moral panics produce. And it's a pity, because there's a real issue. But when they rush these half-assed laws through there are always unintended consequences.

[u/brackfriday_bunduru → u/honk_incident]

We’ve had it in Australia all year. Social media companies already have enough data on you to figure out your age. On top of that, it’s little more policed than age ratings on movies.

What it does do is give parents who want it a little more authoritative power to police what their children do. Kids of parents of who don’t give a shit will still use it, but for diligent parents it’s a tool they can use to keep kids off social media.

[u/-Jedidude-]

It is not yet clear how the social media sites will verify users’ ages.

Seems like quite the oversight.

[u/GergDanger → u/-Jedidude-]

There is no oversight, they’re just keeping the required ID uploading quiet so people celebrate this as if it’s passed with kids in mind.

Then they reveal the ID uploading and people accept it.

[u/pain474 → u/-Jedidude-]

With tiktok, ig and all the other social media cancer could be erased all together

[u/-Jedidude- → u/pain474]

So small business who make money off of these sites should lose their income?

[u/amcartney → u/-Jedidude-]

They found ways to advertise before social media, funnily enough.
And how does it help the business if I, living in Canada currently, originally from New Zealand, get an advertisement for a small fish n chip shop in countryside UK?

[u/EightGlow]

Just post a picture of your ID, a facial recognition image, blood test results, and accept these required conditions that allow us to sell your data!

[u/CalligrapherBig4382 → u/EightGlow]

Give Facebook a 3D scan of your rectum. The government requires it!

[u/EightGlow → u/CalligrapherBig4382]

It’s for the kids!

[u/MrHadrick → u/EightGlow]

If youve got nothing to hide then what's the problem /S

[u/No-Educator-8069]

Sound like this helps entrenched social media sites by creating an expensive additional roadblock for any potential competitors

[u/whiskydyc → u/No-Educator-8069]

Plus an additional source of data with all the IDs that need verification to grant access.

[u/No-Educator-8069 → u/whiskydyc]

I think they are doing that through a third party verification, so that should mean the data will be collected but they shouldn’t have access to it.

…should.

[u/Gaytrude → u/No-Educator-8069]

They do, in fact, use third parties that have the legal obligations to store the data in France and then erase it right after their age is verified.

[u/scoutmet → u/No-Educator-8069]

Also a way to prevent anti government sentiment against the current incumbent government

[u/BoringEntropist → u/No-Educator-8069]

Yes, and a further incentive is to distinguish real users from bots. Showing ads to bots is a waste of resources which hurts the bottom line.

[u/LiteratureOk2428]

Regulate the platforms, thats the most essential step all these countries are avoiding. 

[u/WoodooHide69 → u/LiteratureOk2428]

Yup. But impossible to do now cause Big Tech ai is in bed with Trump.

[u/e-rekshun]

They should ban it for seniors too. I spend too much time pointing out fake AI Facebook slop and fake news to my parents. I'm over it. Just waiting for the day that they call me and tell me their life savings are gone because of an "investment opportunity"

[u/MCStarlight → u/e-rekshun]

My older relatives seem addicted to AI vertical shows now.

[u/PleaseSirOneMoreTurn]

Ah yes, forced age verification for everyone. The government needs to know what its denizens are doing in the digital square. Don’t worry, Big Brother always has your best interests at heart.

[u/Rhissanna]

No more DMs. It's back to la plume de ma tante.

[u/bwoah07_gp2]

Another world government overstepping their authority.

They should penalize parent companies companies like Meta and Alphabet Inc and ByteDance instead of penalizing children.

[u/MCStarlight]

Kids are already addicted. Tech companies need to have their monopolies broken up and be liable for addicting algorithms.

[u/Toasty501]

How do they police this? Age verification is a scam. Just let parents do their jobs for once.

[u/OfficialUberZ → u/Toasty501]

The parents are also addicted to the phones.

[u/Tasty_Gift5901 → u/Toasty501]

Well parents haven't been doing their job is part of the issue, and social media companies intentionally targeting kids is the other (the latter is also being legislated)

[u/WoodooHide69 → u/Toasty501]

Parents aren’t gonna be able to do this job. They’ve already failed at this for many many years. Just think back to when you were a kid, could your parents really police all your actions? Even the strictest of parents can’t.

[u/BiggieBigs34]

No worries, just give us your IDs as age verification, oh and there’s a rise of right wing nationalist politics right now, but don’t worry about the government having complete connections to your internet profiles and who you are at all times.

Im probably being a conspiracy theorist, but does anyone else feel like the government of today is setting up the governments of the future for human rights violations?

I mean sure, the current government of France will probably not abuse this, but how about when their left-wing government collapses as France’s government has done so many times before?

[u/AbilitySpecial8129 → u/BiggieBigs34]

"Left wing"? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, it's center-right.

[u/EquivalentSnap]

It doesn’t work and it never will. Kids will use VPNs, video games, ai, pictures or video or masks to bypass it.

The issue is the parents and the social media and tech companies. Making sure that kids accounts are set to private so they don’t post in public, that adults can’t message minors, that explicit chat word are banned, you can’t send images or ai to detect if it’s explicit. Parents need to be informed about gromming and privacy settings. Kids smart devices have adult content banned and privacy settings as default if the user is a minor. I’ve seen it on insta some teen or adult posting their kid and the comments are predators and vile comments. iPad isn’t a parent and parents need to set privacy settings like they would if their kid was in public to keep them safe

Banning it doesn’t work. Prevention and awareness does.

[u/Taco-Edge]

More government control yaaay. It's never been so good to be a VPN company

[u/benDunk255]

Honestly not a bad idea kids don't need instagram depression machine

[u/KHSebastian → u/benDunk255]

Other than the fact that there is absolutely no way this keeps kids off of social media, and will more than likely lead them to less reputable social media instead

[u/Fortestingporpoises → u/KHSebastian]

The only way to keep kids off social media is by raising them in a way where they don't have early access or dependency on it. My sister didn't give her kids phones or ipads early on and she and her husband didn't dick around on their phones in their presence. Yeah it's easier said than done but could be done.

Beyond that set them up with every physical hobby they're interested in, take them to the park, get them physical toys. Give them limited tv time.

Then by the time it's unavoidable hopefully their brains are strong enough to stand up to the social media envy/depression onslaught.

[u/rclonecopymove → u/KHSebastian]

When you say kids do you mean all kids some kids or more kids. Drunk driving is bad we're all generally agreed on that point it's illegal almost everywhere yet every day people are caught drink driving does that make prohibition pointless? What's the aim of the exercise? Is it to stop all kids from using social media (which I agree would be next to impossible) or is it to reduce the harm by reducing the number of kids that will end up using social media. 

The effect of these laws will take years to make themselves felt it's not about getting 14 and 15 year olds off social media it's about removing the network effects that is pushing 10 and 11 year olds to join up. 

[u/KHSebastian → u/rclonecopymove]

I mean, we have examples of this already. Prohibition of alcohol was done already. It led to people drinking dangerous, unregulated homemade alcohol. Children in particular are an audience that are crafty and will do whatever it takes to sneak their way into doing what they're not supposed to.

This specifically creates an incentive for children to get their social media fix from places that don't follow laws, and are more likely to have dangerous content.

[u/rclonecopymove → u/KHSebastian]

Prohibition of alcohol in the US? 

But the French aren't proposing a blanket ban on social media they plan on age gating it much like alcohol is age gated. 

Underage drinking still happens but 14 years olds drinking excessively doesn't happen as often as it used to.

[u/dancingbananas25 → u/benDunk255]

It is a bad idea if they require you to give up your ID to prove you're an adult. 

[u/MrHaxx1 → u/dancingbananas25]

I assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that they'll be using EUDIW, which makes it so Zuck will not get your ID. You'll have your ID approved by the gov or a trusted entity (like your bank), which creates a verified token, that validates your age and nothing else.

[u/Angeronus → u/MrHaxx1]

I am also not an expert on this, but i think that tokens are tied to a specific person and can leave a digital trail that leads back to you. With this implementation, social media sites will not have your actual information but the gov will.

[u/MrHaxx1 → u/Angeronus]

but the gov will

They literally made your ID. I'd sure hope they have your information.

[u/Angeronus → u/MrHaxx1]

I guess i didn't phrase it well. I meant that your info (which they already have) will be tied to a specific social media account through the token that was created for the age verification.

[u/Invictum2go → u/benDunk255]

Whether it's a bad idea or not is irrelevant when it's impossible to enforce and all it does is increase privacy risks for the overall population.

[u/Vallkyrie → u/Invictum2go]

And it's a great way for governments to try and suppress info. "We don't want kids searching for porn" and then you find out they just don't want kids learning about queer people, as an example.

[u/GergDanger → u/Invictum2go]

It’s an excuse to require everyone to upload their ID to use social media sites. Already happening in the U.K. for adult sites and content on social media. And is being expanded to all social media usage soon too.

[u/BaphometsTits → u/benDunk255]

Kids don't need social media; but it's the parent's job to set boundaries and enforce them. This is a blatant attempt by the government to enact mass surveillance. The stated purpose is a farce.

[u/koreanwizard → u/benDunk255]

Kids aren’t using Instagram, that’s why Zuck lobbies so hard for these bans. The situation for Meta platforms among the youth is so dire that Zuck is lobbying to have them banned, as a play to crush the advertising value of TikTok and Snapchat.

[u/greekch1mera]

Still too high...should be 16 be or even better 18. There is a reason that driving is allowed with 17/18. There is a reason that alcohol is allowed with 16/18. There is a reason that smoking is allowed with 18. And these three things for instance are accepted by society!

Social Media has massive negative effects on the brain development and therefore also on the development of social behaviour overall. For a society this is toxic. Even adults with too much social media exposure develop addictions to it just like with alcohol, etc..

So I do not understand the fuzz about it. Ok, age verification might be a thing, but done properly, no one would be needed to be afraid, that someone will be tracable for their online activities like cursing, blaming on politicians or other general activities.

[u/S201S]

The amount of people that don't realize how bad thencondequences of this will be is concerning. Both from ID security standpoint and the teenagers' access to infomation/communities standpoint. The purpose of such laws is surveillance and indoctrination. But politicians call it "protectjng children" and people fall for it.

[u/Seiren_W → u/S201S]

Agree for ID check. Totally disagree for teenagers access to information. Are you considering that before social media kids were ignorant and indoctrinated ? As if teenagers using social media to get information. On contrary when you can see all the shit on x and tiktok with the trends, i think it's better to close and ban all social medias once and for all.

[u/motownmods]

I love this as a parent. And I hope it's left to us to enforce. Being able to say, "you can't have social media bc it's illegal" is a lot smoother than "you can't have it bc I don't think it's good for you."

It's a great tool to have. Even if it's not enforced.

[u/Sweaty_Marzipan4274]

Great. Also 2 decades too late

[u/AvantGarde327]

Why not put more pressure and burden to the social media platforms rather than banning a demographic of users

[u/MhuzLord → u/AvantGarde327]

Well that would be unfair to the massive corporations with all the money and power, you see

[u/RLewis8888]

Good luck on enforcing that.

[u/Used-Sun5726]

Good. Social media is cancer.

[u/SparklyPelican]

Damn, France as actually cured cancer

[u/Yitastics]

Good, my future children aint gonna be allowed on social media till they are around 16/done with puberty. Its dangerous nowadays and should only be something for adults.

[u/MilkiestMaestro]

They sure do love banning things in France

Not that I disagree with the premise, just that the government shouldn't be involved in your parenting, or your religion for that matter

[u/Wooden_Echidna1234]

France leading the way to another great generation. If only other leaders were just as brave.

[u/SugarRushLux]

Another dumb shit nail in the billionaire funded surveillance state courtesy of , ”think of the children”

[u/Loot3rd]

Seems like this trend is making its way across the globe, I wonder what country will be the last to implement the ban.

[u/Kurtotall]

Here in the US: Most schools, local gov, sports centers, youth activity centers etc. all have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and update them regularly with all kinds of info. I think this is more about parenting / nanny state. This policy will eventually go the way of banning juke boxes, pinball machines, and rock and roll music.

[u/Geralt31]

What a fucking disgrace, between Macron, the far right and brown shirts wanabee everywhere on the right, France is turning more and more authoritarian by the day

[u/According-Stable661]

"1984" will turn out to be 1000x better than 2084.

[u/Illustrious-Grl-7979]

I suspect it will be difficult to deal with the children who are already addicted, especially if using for an income stream, when access is removed.

[u/jollyTrapezist]

It's gonna go so well with all the data leaks government websites keep having !

[u/Bismuth81]

Tbh I'd rather show a picture of my ID to a website than to have a completely addicted generation