Children under 15 in France could be completely banned from using social media, while teenagers aged 15 to 18 should be subject to a "digital curfew" at night, a parliamentary committee called for on Thursday. So, what should you know about it?
A result that comes out of pressure from the community
For your information, this suggestion was put forward in the report after months of hearing testimony from families, social media executives, and influencers.
Besides that, President Emmanuel Macron's office had previously expressed its intention to enforce the ban, in line with Australia's move to begin drafting legislation banning the use of social media for under-16s.
Moreover, the head of the committee, Arthur Delaporte, also said he would file a criminal complaint against the short-video platform TikTok for "endangering the lives" of users.
Additionally, the committee was formed in March to examine the psychological effects of TikTok on young people, following a lawsuit in 2024 by seven families who accused the app of exposing their children to content that encouraged suicide.
Furthermore, the report's lead author, Laure Miller, stated that TikTok's addictive design and algorithm "have been copied by other social media platforms."
TikTok insists that the safety of young users is a "top priority", but Delaporte accused the platform of being aware of its algorithm problems but still "complicit" in harming users.
In addition, a mother named Geraldine, who lost her 18-year-old daughter to suicide, said that after her daughter's death, she discovered a self-harm video that her daughter had uploaded and watched on TikTok.
She accused the platform of failing to enforce content moderation, which led her daughter to fall further into trouble.
What’s next?
TikTok executives told the committee that its AI-based moderation system successfully detected 98% of content violating regulations in France last year.
However, parliamentarians assessed that the efforts were still insufficient, that they were easily circumvented, and that TikTok's algorithm continued to multiply harmful content by encouraging young users to watch it repeatedly.
The criminal complaint filed by Delaporte also accuses TikTok executive Marlene Masure of lying to the committee about the app's adverse effects based on internal documents leaked to US and French media.
The committee's report recommends that a full ban on social media be extended to all under-18s if, within the next three years, the platforms fail to comply with European law.
The proposed "digital curfew" would also prohibit social media from being accessed by teenagers aged 15 to 18 from 10 PM to 8 AM.
Did this news catch your attention? Stay tuned for more news like this at TechNave!
COMMENTS