Greece is getting ready to roll out sweeping new restrictions on minors’ on-line exercise, set to start in October 2025. Below the plan, youngsters below 15 will robotically be blocked from accessing social media platforms, whereas these below 18 will face limitations to web sites selling or promoting playing, alcohol, tobacco, and pornography. The measures, which place management on the system stage fairly than on social media platforms themselves, will make Greece the primary European Union member to introduce such a framework.
Gadget-Stage Restrictions and the Function of Dad and mom
In contrast to Australia, the place social media platforms will implement age limits by requiring id verification, Greece’s mannequin is constructed into the gadgets themselves. Dad and mom might be answerable for activating the controls by registering their little one’s info. As soon as enabled, the federal government’s Children Pockets app will decide the consumer’s age and apply automated filters. For customers below 15, this implies social media functions corresponding to Fb, TikTok, Instagram, and X might be blocked outright. For these between 15 and 17, the identical system will stop entry to on-line playing websites, grownup leisure, alcohol and tobacco retailers, and courting companies like Tinder.
Authorities sources confirmed that the Children Pockets utility integrates with Greece’s digital registry, permitting seamless age verification. As Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis defined, the initiative provides mother and father “an easy-to-use parental management app for social media use,” whereas shifting accountability from platforms to gadgets.
European Fee and Worldwide Affect
The European Fee has been intently concerned in testing age verification techniques throughout a number of member states, together with France, Spain, Denmark, and Italy. Fee President Ursula von der Leyen has confused the significance of those trials, noting that the EU will work intently with Australia, which in October 2025 will implement its personal ban on social media use for under-16s. Von der Leyen described Australia’s guidelines as “the world’s first pioneering social media ban” and stated Europe would be taught from its utility.
A delegation from the European Fee is predicted in Athens to evaluate Greece’s preparations and trade technical experience. The EU’s objective is to make sure consistency throughout member states, whereas permitting for variations in execution. Greece, by transferring forward first, is positioning itself because the testing floor for the area.
Political Management and Public Issues
Mitsotakis has persistently underlined the dangers of unrestricted social media use. Talking at a UN occasion hosted by Australia, he warned: “We’re conducting the most important uncontrolled experiment ever on the minds of our youngsters. We have no idea what the results might be, however we’re virtually sure that they won’t be optimistic.” He additionally argued that “we can not invoke the difficulties in implementing these insurance policies as an excuse for not doing something about the issue.”
The Prime Minister pointed to earlier initiatives, corresponding to banning cell phones in colleges, which he described as having a “transformational impression on the tutorial expertise.” These measures, he added, present Greece’s willpower to confront the hazards of digital platforms head-on.
Cooperation With Tech Corporations
Greek authorities have been in talks with main expertise companies, together with Google, to discover the most effective implementation strategies. Though corporations have supplied proposals, last selections will relaxation with the Prime Minister. In response to the Ministry of Digital Governance, the strategy will rely closely on EU expertise and adapt it to Greece’s nationwide techniques.
Whereas Australia’s framework compels platforms themselves to take accountability, Greece’s strategy is seen as stricter in a single key respect: it blocks minors even when they try to view content material with out logging in, a loophole that also exists in Australia’s plan.
Broader Motivations Behind the Ban
The push for restrictions comes amid mounting proof that compulsive scrolling on platforms like TikTok has damaging results on younger customers. Research have linked extreme use of short-form video content material to consideration problems, anxiousness, melancholy, and diminished educational efficiency. Specialists argue that algorithms encourage overconsumption by continually releasing dopamine “bursts,” in a course of in comparison with addictive substances.
Mitsotakis has known as this “a digital age of majority,” arguing that leaders have an obligation to behave primarily based on scientific findings. He has additionally urged worldwide cooperation, warning that unchecked publicity to manipulative content material and predators poses a world problem.
With October’s deadline approaching, Greece seems set to develop into the primary EU nation to place these concepts into follow, reshaping how minors work together with social media and different on-line platforms.
Supply:
“Finish of social media for youngsters as much as 15 years outdated from October”, protothema.gr, September 28, 2025.
