Meta backs EU’s digital adulthood plan

The Facebook and Instagram owner has expressed support for the EU-wide age of digital adulthood, below which minors would have to get parents’ consent to log onto social media.

The proposal, put forward by Greece and backed by France and Spain, is gaining traction in Brussels as member states become increasingly concerned about the impact of unsupervised screentime on children.

Under the plans, children would have to get their parents' approval before they can use popular apps such as TikTok or Instagram in what would be adopted across the 27-member bloc as the age of “digital majority.”

“Across the industry, there is growing recognition that teens deserve consistent protection across all the different digital platforms they use,” Meta said in a blog post.

“That’s why we support proposals to establish a common Digital Majority Age across EU member states, whereby parents need to approve their younger teens’ access to digital services, including social media,” the company said.

Last year, Australia passed a new law called the Online Safety Amendment that bans social media for children under 16 years old despite lobbying efforts against it by big technology companies. Meta said the bill would be ineffective and overlooks the “practical reality” of age assurance technology.

The EU’s proposal falls short of an outright ban and relies on parental controls and cooperation with social media platforms.

“To be clear, our support for an EU-wide Digital Majority Age is not an endorsement of government-mandated social media bans,” Meta said.

It said that “bans take away parental authority, focus narrowly on one type of online service among the nearly two million apps available to teens, and overlook how teens use social media to connect with the world around them, grow and learn.”

“Bans also fail to acknowledge the differences that exist between different services and varying levels of protections they offer,” the company said.

Meta added that it supported age verification beyond social media, including gaming, streaming, messaging, and browsing. It also said that the age-verification mechanisms should be realized at the app store or operating system level.