France Mulls Social Media Ban For Children Under 15

Children under 15 in France should be completely banned from using social media, while those aged 15 to 18 should face a nighttime “digital curfew,” a French parliamentary committee recommended on Thursday.

The proposals were outlined in a report by the committee’s lawmakers following months of testimony from families, social media executives, and influencers.

President Emmanuel Macron’s office has already expressed support for restrictions on children and young adolescents, following Australia’s move last year toward a similar law prohibiting social media use for those under 16.

Committee chief Arthur Delaporte told AFP he planned to file a criminal complaint against TikTok for “endangering the lives” of its users.

The committee was established in March to investigate TikTok’s psychological effects on minors after a 2024 lawsuit by seven families accused the platform of exposing children to content encouraging self-harm and suicide.

Laure Miller, the report’s lead writer, said TikTok’s addictive design and algorithm “has been copied by other social media platforms,” amplifying risks for young users.

TikTok has insisted that protecting young users is its “top priority.” However, Delaporte argued, “There’s no question that the platform knows what is going wrong, that their algorithm is problematic, and that there is a kind of active complicity in endangering users.”

Geraldine, mother of an 18-year-old who died by suicide, told AFP that after her daughter’s death, she discovered self-harm videos her daughter had posted and viewed on TikTok.

“TikTok didn’t kill our little girl, because she wasn’t well in any case,” said Geraldine, 52, who declined to give her last name.

She added that TikTok’s moderation fell short and “plunged her daughter deeper into her dark impulses.”

Executives for TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, told the committee that AI-enhanced moderation caught 98% of content violating its rules in France last year.

But lawmakers deemed these efforts insufficient, calling TikTok’s rules “very easy to circumvent” and noting that harmful content continued to proliferate, with algorithms drawing young users into reinforcing loops.

In a criminal complaint reviewed by AFP, Delaporte said TikTok’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa chief, Marlene Masure, might have lied under oath about the platform’s internal knowledge of potential harms, which had been revealed in leaked files.

The committee suggested that if social media platforms fail to comply with European laws within the next three years, the ban could extend to all users under 18.

The proposed “digital curfew” would make social media inaccessible to 15-to-18-year-olds between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.