Spain considers social media ban for under-16s, joining others in Europe

MADRID (AP) — Spain plans to ban social media access for children under 16, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Tuesday, in a move designed to shield young people from the harms of online content.

The progressive Spanish leader spoke at a summit in the United Arab Emirates, where he chided the world's biggest tech companies for allowing illegal content such as child sex abuse and nonconsensual sexualized deepfake images and videos on their platforms, saying that governments also needed to “stop turning a blind eye.”

“Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone," Sánchez said. “We will no longer accept that.”

In doing so, Spain joins a growing number of countries, including Australia and France, which have taken or are considering measures to restrict minors' access to social media.

In January, French lawmakers approved a bill banning social media for children under 15, paving the way for the measure to take effect at the start of the next school year in September. The bill would also ban the use of mobile phones in high schools.

Meanwhile, Australia has started implementing the world's first social media ban for under-16s, after its government passed a measure that holds platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for failing to prevent children from having accounts.

Denmark, too, has introduced similar legislation to ban access to social media for users under 15.

Sánchez said that Spain would require social media companies to enforce the ban with age verification systems, “not just check boxes, but real barriers that work."

Many social media apps require users to be at least 13, though enforcement varies. Users are often asked to declare their own age.

The ban will be added to an already existing measure centered on digital protections for minors that is being debated by parliament, a Spanish government spokesperson said.

Sánchez said that Spain had joined five other European countries in what he dubbed a “coalition of the digitally willing” to coordinate the regulation of social media platforms at a multinational level.