Spain considering social media ban for under 16s as France and UK mull restrictions
Australia and France are leading the way in moves to protect children. The UK is considering introducing similar plans
Spain plans to ban social media access for children under 16, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said, in a move designed to shield young people from the harms of online content.
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The progressive Spanish leader spoke at a summit in the United Arab Emirates, where he chided the world's biggest tech companies for allowing illegal content such as child sex abuse and non-consensual sexualised deepfake images and videos on their platforms, saying that governments also needed to "stop turning a blind eye".
"Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone," Mr Sanchez said. "We will no longer accept that."
In doing so, Spain joins a growing number of countries, including Australia and France, which have taken or are considering measures to restrict minors' access to social media.
Read More: British under-16s could be banned from social media within months
Read More: Australia’s under-16s social media ban is doing what critics said it couldn’t
In January, French politicians approved a bill banning social media for children under 15, paving the way for the measure to take effect at the start of the next school year in September. The bill would also ban the use of mobile phones in high schools.
Meanwhile, Australia has started implementing the world's first social media ban for under-16s, after its government passed a measure that holds platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for failing to prevent children from having accounts.
Denmark, too, has introduced similar legislation to ban access to social media for users under 15.
Mr Sanchez said that Spain would require social media companies to enforce the ban with age verification systems, "not just check boxes, but real barriers that work".
Many social media apps require users to be at least 13, though enforcement varies. Users are often asked to declare their own age.
The ban will be added to an already existing measure centred on digital protections for minors that is being debated by parliament, a Spanish government spokesperson said.
Mr Sanchez said that Spain had joined five other European countries in what he dubbed a "coalition of the digitally willing" to co-ordinate the regulation of social media platforms at a multinational level.