Greece bans social media for children under 15, Prime Minister announces it on TikTok

Starting January 1st, 2027, children under the age of 15 are no longer allowed to use social media in Greece.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the social media ban in a video on TikTok, which is a popular platform among adolescent viewers.

In the video, Mitsotakis says that he spoke with many parents over the past few years, and they all say that their children don’t sleep well and experience anxiety. They also mentioned the addictive design of social media platforms.

In addition, the Prime Minister says that young people have told him that they are getting tired of comparisons and the pressure to be constantly online. For these reasons, he calls the social media ban “a difficult but necessary step.”

“Greece will be ⁠among the first countries to take such an initiative. I am certain, however, that it will not be the last. Our goal ​is to push the European Union in this direction as well,” Mitsotakis says.

According to Greek news outlet News24/7, the ban applies to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.

The legislation that will impose the social media ban for children under 15 will be presented later this year. It will take effect on January 1st, 2027.

Australia was the first country to impose a social media ban for children under the age of 16. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he wanted to combat the mental and physical effects of social media platforms, including social isolation, sleep deprivation, addictive behavior, and low self-esteem.

Soon after, numerous European countries followed suit, such as Austria, Denmark, France, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Other European countries like Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands are considering a social media ban for minors.

As it is now, there’s a fragmented approach to how to handle the risks of social media. European lawmakers are inclined to force tech companies to implement age verification tools to determine the age of users.

Experts, on the other hand, claim that this measure will not solve problems. Kids who really want to be active on social media can easily bypass a safeguard measure like age verification. For example, they can use a VPN to change their location, they can ask a parent or older brother to create a social media account on their behalf, or they can fool age verification systems simply by asking an AI tool to make them look older on a profile picture.

On top of that, age verification can lead to unequal protection across the EU, as is perfectly demonstrated in Cybernews’s in-depth article on Europe’s social media ban wave.

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