France Mulls Social Media Ban For Children Under 15

Children nether 15 successful France should beryllium wholly banned from utilizing societal media, portion those aged 15 to 18 should look a nighttime “digital curfew,” a French parliamentary committee recommended connected Thursday.

The proposals were outlined successful a study by the committee’s lawmakers pursuing months of grounds from families, societal media executives, and influencers.

President Emmanuel Macron’s bureau has already expressed enactment for restrictions connected children and young adolescents, pursuing Australia’s determination past twelvemonth toward a akin instrumentality prohibiting societal media usage for those nether 16.

Committee main Arthur Delaporte told AFP helium planned to record a transgression ailment against TikTok for “endangering the lives” of its users.

The committee was established successful March to analyse TikTok’s intelligence effects connected minors aft a 2024 suit by 7 families accused the level of exposing children to contented encouraging self-harm and suicide.

Laure Miller, the report’s pb writer, said TikTok’s addictive plan and algorithm “has been copied by different societal media platforms,” amplifying risks for young users.

TikTok has insisted that protecting young users is its “top priority.” However, Delaporte argued, “There’s nary question that the level knows what is going wrong, that their algorithm is problematic, and that determination is simply a benignant of progressive complicity successful endangering users.”

Geraldine, parent of an 18-year-old who died by suicide, told AFP that aft her daughter’s death, she discovered self-harm videos her girl had posted and viewed connected TikTok.

“TikTok didn’t termination our small girl, due to the fact that she wasn’t good successful immoderate case,” said Geraldine, 52, who declined to springiness her past name.

She added that TikTok’s moderation fell abbreviated and “plunged her girl deeper into her acheronian impulses.”

Executives for TikTok, owned by Chinese institution ByteDance, told the committee that AI-enhanced moderation caught 98% of contented violating its rules successful France past year.

But lawmakers deemed these efforts insufficient, calling TikTok’s rules “very casual to circumvent” and noting that harmful contented continued to proliferate, with algorithms drafting young users into reinforcing loops.

In a transgression ailment reviewed by AFP, Delaporte said TikTok’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa chief, Marlene Masure, mightiness person lied nether oath astir the platform’s interior cognition of imaginable harms, which had been revealed successful leaked files.

The committee suggested that if societal media platforms neglect to comply with European laws wrong the adjacent 3 years, the prohibition could widen to each users nether 18.

The projected “digital curfew” would marque societal media inaccessible to 15-to-18-year-olds betwixt 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.