Greece’s parliament approved a bill on Friday banning the use of social media platforms by children under 15, amid growing concern over the effect of the platforms on the health and safety of minors, the Daily Mirror reported, citing Reuters.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said platforms have two and a half months to devise a way of verifying users’ ages while protecting their privacy — the central technical problem that has defeated similar laws elsewhere.
Greece said it was standing by parents to help curb the “endless scrolling” that deprives children of sleep, concentration and time with their friends.
Where the law sits internationally
Australia was the first country to legislate against social media use by minors, doing so last year. A comparable French law was struck down by France’s Constitutional Council in August.
Greece is one of seven European Union countries working with the European Commission on a shared age-verification solution. That matters for enforcement: a national ban is difficult to apply to platforms headquartered elsewhere in the bloc, and the Commission’s involvement is what would make age checks workable across borders.
A widening pattern
The measure follows Turkey’s move to bar under-15s from social media earlier this month, which set the same age threshold.
The question has also been raised in Sri Lanka’s Parliament, where a private member’s motion sought a ban on social media for under-15s. No Sri Lankan legislation has followed.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the vote count, the name of the bill, or the penalties for platforms that fail to comply. Neither says which services are covered or whether messaging apps are included, and there is no indication of how the ban will be enforced against children who misstate their age. Hiru’s account, filed about two hours earlier and attributed only to “foreign media”, carries none of the detail in the Reuters report.
