Greece also bans social media for those under 15: very high fines are foreseen for platforms that do not verify the age of users

There Greece breaks the deadlock and declares a real institutional war on screen addiction among very young people. The Hellenic Parliament approved the law entitled “Prohibition on the use of social networks by minors” overnight, establishing the mandatory blocking of access to digital platforms for all children under 15 years of age starting January 1st.

The measure, supported by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, received the green light with the compact votes of only the centre-right majority made up of the Nea Dimokratia party. The Minister of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence, Dimitris Papastergiou, defined the provision a necessary, effective and perfectly compatible solution with the principles of European law to counteract devastating phenomena such as social isolation, cyberbullying, sleep disorders and anxiety caused by the pervasive conditioning of algorithms.

The clash in the chamber with the opposition and the challenge of Age Verification

The approval process of the law was accompanied by heated parliamentary debates that split the Athens chamber. The deputies of the socialist party Pasok have chosen the path ofabstentioncriticizing the rigidity of the text and advocating an alternative countermeasure that it envisaged the ban on social media up to 13 years and the obligation of parental control for the age group included between 13 and 14 years. The left-wing parties and nationalist groups have instead expressed a contrary opinion.

The success of the measure will now depend ontechnical implementation of Age Verification protocolsi.e. the registry control systems that companies will have to activate. Industry giants such as TikTok, Instagram and X are at risk fines of up to 6% of global turnover if they tolerate profiles belonging to users below the permitted age threshold.

The Hellenic model in the international context and the constitutional unknowns

Greece’s initiative is part of the furrow traced by Australiawhich approved the ban for children under 16, and joins the legislative stages initiated by countries such as Spain, Denmark, Austria and Slovenia. In the European Union the Hellenic nation follows in the wake of France, even if in the Transalpine territory the measure for under 15s approved in July was stopped by the Constitutional Council due to disproportionate restriction of freedom of expression. Inserted within the framework of the community Kids Act, the model adopted by Kyriakos Mitsotakis aims to act as trailblazer across the entire continentlaying the foundations for a new era of regulatory protections to safeguard minors in the global digital space.