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French Lawmakers Vote To Ban Social Media Use By Under-15s (theguardian.com) 50

French lawmakers have voted to ban social media access for children under 15 and prohibit mobile phones in high schools, positioning France as the second country after Australia to impose sweeping age-based digital restrictions. The Guardian reports: The lower national assembly adopted the text by a vote of 130 to 21 in a lengthy overnight session from Monday to Tuesday. It will now go to the Senate, France's upper house, ahead of becoming law. Macron hailed the vote as a "major step" to protect French children and teenagers in a post on X. The legislation, which also provides for a ban on mobile phones in high schools, would make France the second country to take such a step following Australia's ban for under-16s in December. [...] "The emotions of our children and teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, either by American platforms or Chinese algorithms," Macron said in a video broadcast on Saturday. Authorities want the measures to be enforced from the start of the 2026 school year for new accounts.

Former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who leads Macron's Renaissance party in the lower house, said he hoped the Senate would pass the bill by mid-February so that the ban could come into force on September 1. He added that "social media platforms will then have until December 31 to deactivate existing accounts" that do not comply with the age limit. [...] The draft bill excludes online encyclopedias and educational platforms. An effective age verification system would have to come into force for the ban to become reality. Work on such a system is under way at the European level.

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French Lawmakers Vote To Ban Social Media Use By Under-15s

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  • Let me guess (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Z80a ( 971949 )

    You need to use your real identity to prove you're an adult (tm)

    • Re:Let me guess (Score:5, Informative)

      by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @09:40PM (#65955696)

      Sharing the real name wouldn't be compatible with first principle of GDPR, which is to only collect data necessary for the purpose. The age verification project is based on a digital ID wallet, which contains the real information but only shares the necessary 1/0 bit related to a regulated age. More here: https://ageverification.dev/ [ageverification.dev]

      • That seems cool. If they do this in America will they do it with the same caution and thoughtfulness I wonder? I really doubt it.

        • If they do this in America ...

          America already does it. Several states ban social media for teens. Utah was first. Other states followed.

          will they do it with the same caution and thoughtfulness I wonder?

          Most states with bans leave it up to the tech companies to figure out how to verify age.

    • by labnet ( 457441 )

      Australia has done this.
      No Real ID was required and no adults I know had to do anything.
      The social media companies already know more about you than your mother.

  • Guaranteed to work!

    Just in case, though, be sure to line up a next designated scapegoat.

    May I suggest vape pens and excess soy?

  • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @10:27PM (#65955748) Homepage

    I expect that by the end of 2026, a half dozen more countries will institute similar bans.

    I don't know that age-based bans are a good idea. I think certain business models should be banned. Specifically, any business model that depends on "engagement" for revenue should be banned because it leads to deliberately making platforms addictive and harmful to people's health, and any business model that depends on violating your privacy to feed you personalized ads (or that sells your data to others) should be banned too.

    This would basically ban Facebook, Instagram, TikTox, Twitter, etc. and that would be fine.. We'd be left with either paid social media that respects your privacy and doesn't need "engagement" to drive revenue, or free networks like Mastodon that don't expect to make a profit.

    • This is wisdom. Its funny how adults are supposed to be immune to the sickness these websites cause which clearly they are the ones who are most negatively effected by them.

      • They get so incredibly pissed when you point it out, too. I remember leaving a comment once that said simply, "Wait until you see what it does to the adults." that got downmodded immediately. Pretty sure it happened more than once.

        I think they confused the moderation feature with a "reaction" button.

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Precisely. Facebook, etc. employ armies of developers and psychologists who are really, really good at hacking people's brains. Even smart people are basically defenseless against the resources Facebook can bring to bear to suck you in. Which is why I cancelled all my social media accounts a while back... at least on "engagement-based" platforms.

        You can't win against them. The only option is not to play their game.

    • The twin lures of gossip and reputation smearing works well to draw in large numbers of women addicted to social media.

      The same social media draw explains the appeal of the Tea App with its "quadfecta" of (gossip, reputation smearing, shaming, doxxing) of men by women who'd never met them with the necessary plausible deniability of "protecting and safety"..

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
      Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders Volume 23, March 2016, Pages 152-165
      Associations between compulsive internet use a

    • I don't know that age-based bans are a good idea.

      IMHO age based bans are an *excellent* idea. We do it *all*the*time* for good reasons all around the world, because kids are not adults. Why should access to American computer services be somehow special enough that it bypasses centuries of legal practice? It isn't.

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        In the specific case of social media, I think it's harmful enough to everyone that there should be blanket restrictions, regardless of age.

        In the absence of political will to do that, then OK. Age-based restrictions are better than nothing.

    • We'd be left with either paid social media that respects your privacy and doesn't need "engagement" to drive revenue, or free networks like Mastodon that don't expect to make a profit.

      That's a nice idea but I don't believe that's how the c-suite think. It isn't 'we have one revenue stream, we don't need another', nowadays it seems to be 'we have one revenue stream, can we add another? And then another and another?'. See for example paid subscription services like Netflix and Amazon Prime trying to gradually push ads into everything. Free networks like Mastodon might be better.

      I miss the old internet, where people would meet in forums and message boards. Nobody (generally) obsessing about

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Of course it's not how the C-suite think. Which is why laws need to be passed to regulate their businesses and ban the harmful business models. It should not be a matter of "Oh, I can add a scummy business model and increase revenue!" but "Oh, I can add a scummy business model and go out of business (and maybe face jail time)!"

    • This is more than likely a back door way to push American owned social media companies out of their countries.

      We already know social media has a tremendous impact on politics and public opinion. We also know that America can no longer be trusted. Threatening to invade Greenland was the last straw. If we are too stupid over here in America to impeach a president and threatens a NATO Ally then we can't be trusted anymore.

      So what I suspect this is, is a way to gradually push the American social media c
    • Age based limits aren't the solution to all ills - just like having an age limit for alcohol doesn't stop alcoholism. However, it gives the person a chance to grow up enough to be able to think through what they're doing - at least a little bit before taking it on.

      In the case of social media, it's obviously designed to be addictive. At 13 you've got zero skills to resist that addiction. At 16 you might have a few, and at (say) 20 you'll have a few more and at 40+ you'll have lots. You might still become add

    • by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      Use ad-blockers, and then "engagement" becomes just another unwanted expense, like it should be. Make 'em say "I sure wish ISPs would cache my site's pages so that not every user has to hit my little server." Party like it's 1995, dudes!

  • by SoftwareArtist ( 1472499 ) on Thursday January 29, 2026 @01:39AM (#65955982)

    Macron hailed the vote as a "major step" to protect French children and teenagers in a post on X.

    In a post that it will soon be illegal for anyone under 15 to read.

    Leaders need to practice what they preach. If you're going to cut teens off from social media, don't put important information on social media where they can't access it.

    • Expect massive government campaigns to pay for newspaper advertising to inform and warn young people about the dangers of smoking and other practices.

      The newspapers will gladly take the advertising revenue to avoid bankruptcy and provide "unbiased reporting" of what the government is doing.

    • I don't understand the irony. There would have been irony if the poster (Macron) would have been below 15 himself.

      If you're going to cut teens off from social media, don't put important information on social media where they can't access it.

      This post obviously wasn't the only place where the information was published. Social media is an additional channel of government communication, not the main one.
      Young people currently still have access to the social media, and they will until late this year. By that time nobody will need to look up for this post to find out the info.
      School is compulsory until 16 so people this message addresse

    • by dskoll ( 99328 )

      15-year-olds can't vote. So there are no political consequences for them not seeing Macron's posts.

  • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

    Just like that, another country that decides that they would rather not actually deal with the base issues. This protects no one, and I have yet to see an effective age verification tool.

    • Oh, pray tell. What are the "base issues", and how should they realistically be addressed?

      • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        mental health

      • I can't answer for that poster. But much of the "base issues" has to do with not interactively preparing children for what they will be exposed to. And that is difficult, especially if there are no controls. It needs to start with restricting access and then gradually giving more exposure as they mature. Instead, parents are just allowing children to have devices, with little or no controls at all.

        Children shouldn't have unsupervised access to unrestricted, internet-connected devices. It goes way beyon

  • The first thing Macron does after this decision is post on X ?!

  • Australia has offered themselves as a test country for this policy.

    They are only one month in, and France already thinks they should also implement it. Have they looked at the preliminary results? Are those available?

    I wonder what is the key metric here.
    Change (decrease) of teenagers' mental health issue?
    Less manipulation by "the Chinese"? How would you measure that?
    Something else?

    How does a country measure the effect of such policies, either before or after the implementation?

  • The damage is already done. It's socially accepted and almost required that a teen has a smartphone and use it to post and read stuff, parents protests if their kid's phone is taken by the teacher during the school hours.

Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users?

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