Anna Stolz, the president of the Education Ministers Conference and a representative of the Freie Wähler party, has praised the European Union’s proposed framework for regulating social media use by children and adolescents. According to Stolz, the gradual, age-based approach is headed in the right direction. Speaking to the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland,” the Bavarian Education Minister stated that the younger children are the ones who require the most protection. The aim, she said, is to ensure young people can take advantage of the opportunities offered by the digital world without being unprotected against its various risks. For this reason, she believes the EU is right to take the lead on this issue now.
While media literacy and guidance are crucial for children and adolescents, effective protection against social media risks is equally necessary. Stolz emphasized that schools and parents alone cannot fulfill this role, highlighting the urgent need for platforms themselves to take greater responsibility.
The EU Commission aims to significantly limit how children and young people use social media. The proposed rules dictate that children under the age of 13 should not have their own accounts or devices. Instead, they can use child-friendly video platforms for a maximum of one hour per day via their parents’ accounts. For adolescents aged 13 to 15, they may initially only use supervised mini-accounts set up and monitored by their parents for one hour daily. Generally, establishing independent user accounts would only be permitted from the age of 15 onward. Crucially, these online providers must verify the age of their users.
Furthermore, the platforms will soon be required to demonstrate, through specific functions and default settings, that they are safe for children and young people. Before these rules can come into effect, the European Parliament and all 27 EU member states must formally review the proposal, a process that could take months or even years.
