Responding to the passing of a bill by France’s parliament banning children under 15 from accessing social media and restricting the use of phones in schools, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:
“There is no doubt that regulating platforms to protect children is an imperative of our time. We commend states for taking social media harms seriously but rather than pursuing blanket bans, efforts should be on forcing platforms to abandon their reckless pursuit of profit to the detriment of human rights.
“Building safe platforms requires a robust response. To ensure platforms are spaces where children can access community, connection and knowledge in a healthy and safe way, governments should first focus on banning the features that drive harm, including engagement-based algorithms that Amnesty International’s research has shown can draw children into rabbit holes of depressive and suicidal content. Any proposed solution must also proactively address the increasing risks posed by AI chatbots to children’s rights and safety.
“Bans alone, without any requirements to change the underlying algorithms and addictive features, will leave children who manage to circumnavigate age-gates, older children and adults exposed to the same risks.
“We encourage French lawmakers and others considering social media bans to take a cue from recent recommendations by the EU Special Panel on Child Safety Online advising regulators to take constructive steps to tackle the harmful design of social media instead of defaulting to blanket bans.
“The panel rightly stated that children’s right to participate in a safe online environment is the basis upon which governments must approach this debate. Where social media bans are introduced, they must be a temporary measure implemented as part of building a different social media with design principles focused on child safety.”
Background:
The French parliament on Tuesday to passed a law banning children under 15 from accessing social media making France the first country in the EU to do so. The implementation of the ban will take effect from September when children under 15 will be blocked from creating social media accounts. It will then apply to existing accounts from January 2027.
Amnesty International’s detailed recommendations for the protection of children from online harms can be found in our companion reports: Driven into Darkness: How TikTok’s ‘For You’ Feed Encourages Self-Harm and Suicidal Ideation – Amnesty International and “I Feel Exposed”: Caught in TikTok’s Surveillance Web – Amnesty International.
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