Estonian experts: social media should be made safer for children, not banned
Estonian media researchers criticize the EU's plan to ban social media for children under 13, arguing that platforms themselves need to be improved rather than restricting children's access.
On Thursday, the European Commission adopted the so-called EU Kids Act, a regulation proposing to ban social media use for children under 13 and require parental control over accounts for teens aged 13-15. The proposal, still to be negotiated with EU member states and the European Parliament, would also apply a list of permitted and prohibited activities to social media, video services, online games and AI-based chatbots for users under 18.
Tallinn University media professor Indrek Ibrus is critical of the plan, arguing it conflicts with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and children's rights to self-expression and free access to information. He said the Commission, by proposing bans, is effectively admitting it lacks the strength to enforce existing rules such as the Digital Services Act, leaving children to bear the consequences of that failure.
University of Tartu professor Andra Siibak agrees that bans alone are not the best solution and that platforms' business models need to change. She noted it is positive that the EU is demanding concrete measures from service providers, but stressed these obligations already exist in earlier EU regulations, and the EU must ensure platforms actually comply.
Tallinn University professor Katrin Tiidenberg warned against overly rigid bans, pointing to Australia's experience, where the ban has not worked in practice — children under 16 are still online, just without visibility into what they do there.
The age-verification challenge
A central question is how to verify users' ages without seriously compromising privacy. Ibrus warned that age verification could constitute a privacy intrusion or be used for more precise profiling of users. Siibak noted that facial-recognition attempts have failed, and young people easily bypass checks using parents' documents or other tricks. Tiidenberg cautioned that mechanical verification methods, such as requiring ID-card logins, risk leading to mass surveillance of all users, not just children.
The experts broadly agree that efforts should focus on platform design — curbing addictive algorithms, offering chronological feeds as an alternative to recommendation systems, and creating separate, youth-friendly accounts with limited harmful content. Ibrus added that alongside regulation, digital literacy and critical thinking should be developed across age and social groups.
