Speaking in Copenhagen on Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, announced that the European Union is preparing regulatory measures aimed at social media business models to safeguard children and young people. Von der Leyen said the harm to youngsters from exposure to social media is driven by business models that treat children’s attention as a commodity.
The Commission’s plans will primarily target TikTok, X and Meta’s services (Instagram and Facebook), the Commission president said. She specifically cited concerns about TikTok’s addictive effects, endless scrolling and the appearance of push notifications as harmful practices. Von der Leyen also criticized Meta for failing to enforce its own 13-year minimum age policy consistently on Instagram and Facebook.
The Commission has already opened a procedure against the X social platform over the use of the Grok artificial intelligence tool, which produced sexualized images of women and children. Von der Leyen added that the Commission will this year address “addictive and harmful design practices,” including “attention-capturing design, complex contracts and subscription traps.”
The Commission president argued that strict rules are needed that could prohibit access to social media for teenagers below a certain age. She framed the issue not as whether young people should have access to social media, but whether social media should have access to young people.
Von der Leyen indicated the regulatory effort aims to protect children from platform design and business practices, and that the Commission intends to roll out concrete measures later in the year.
Why this matters
- The announcement signals the EU’s intention to go beyond content regulation and to constrain the commercial incentives and design choices of platforms.
- The proposed measures would affect major social apps widely used by young people.
- The procedure against X demonstrates an early example of EU scrutiny of AI tools that produce harmful content.
(This article is based on the Commission president’s announcement; the Commission will publish further details and legislative proposals at a later date.)
