Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt, a member of the CSU party, has expressed doubts regarding the concept of banning social media for children. According to the CSU politician, who spoke to the newspapers of Funke-Mediengruppe, a straightforward prohibition would be difficult to enforce and therefore little useful.
Dobrindt places the primary responsibility for the use of social networks onto parents. He argued that the fundamental decision of when a child should receive a mobile phone should not be made by the state, but rather by families and parents. He pointed out that existing methods of guidance and monitoring are already available, but he emphasized that it is also necessary for parents to actively engage in understanding how their children use smartphones.
While cautioning that responsibility cannot be entirely shifted to one side or the other, Dobrindt warned that state intervention in this area would be ineffective without the cooperation of families. He remarked, “It is too simple to look for a solution where the state merely needs to ban something that has penetrated the information behavior of our society, is closely connected to daily life, and thus the problems would vanish”.
