French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned late Tuesday that he’ll ban social media for under-15s in France “within the coming months” if progress isn’t forthcoming at EU degree.
Greece, backed by France and Spain, is spearheading efforts to get the EU to considerably restrict the period of time youngsters can spend on-line. However Macron, chatting with the French public after the homicide of a educating assistant in a highschool Tuesday morning, desires to maneuver sooner.
“We can not wait,” Macron mentioned, talking on France 2 after the killing in Nogent, Haute-Marne.
He additionally introduced that age verification will quickly be imposed in France on websites promoting knives on-line, much like measures that presently apply to pornographic websites.
“A 15-year-old will not be capable of purchase a knife on-line. Which means we’re going to impose huge monetary sanctions and bans,” he promised. Earlier, Prime Minister François Bayrou had introduced he needed to shortly take steps to ban the sale of “all knives” to minors.
Later within the night, posting on X, Macron mentioned: “I’m banning social media for youngsters underneath 15. Platforms have the power to confirm age. Let’s do it.”
French authorities are already progressing with efforts to pressure sure social media websites — together with X, Reddit, Bluesky and Mastodon — to introduce age verification, by classifying them as pornographic web sites.
French measures forcing porn websites to confirm their customers’ ages got here into impact on June 7, prompting the world’s largest porn web site, Pornhub, to cease working in France. Demand for digital non-public community providers, which permit customers to trick web sites into considering they’re in a distinct location, instantly surged.