France to Ban Social Media for Kids Under 15 — Should India Join the Move?

France has announced it will ban social media for children under the age of 15 in a few months. The decision follows the incident in which a staff member of a secondary school in Nogent was stabbed by a 14-year-old student. While a connection between the stabbing and social media access has not yet been established by the authorities, French President Emmanuel Macron warned against social media access for kids.

“We must ban social media for those under 15,” said Macron during an interview to the public television channel France 2. “I’m giving us a few months to get the European mobilisation going. Otherwise…we’ll start doing it in France. We can’t wait,” he added.

Should a law banning social media access for children under 15 come into effect, it may block children’s access to platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, and Facebook, among others. Macron did not say whether this would be a blanket ban on social media or if the government would ask social media companies to enable age verification systems similar to what they have implemented in Australia.

Last year, Australia became the first country to enforce legal age verification for social media access. The Australian law now requires platforms like Facebook or Instagram to verify the age of their users during the sign-up process. If a user is found to be below the age of 16, the law does not allow them to access the platform. While parents hailed the move, child experts and privacy advocates criticised it for restricting kids’ access to the internet.

Should India follow suit?

After the Australian government put restrictions on who can and cannot access social media as part of the law, many countries began mulling similar moves. The Indian government said it will propose provisions in the Digital Personal Data Protection Act to curb the misuse of social media platforms by teenagers. The government already requires children under 18 to provide parental consent to use social media platforms. However, a robust age verification is not a part of this legal requirement, leaving law enforcement open-ended for both social media companies and users. If France moves ahead with the law to ban social media, it may nudge the Indian government to fast-track its proposal to restrict social media access for kids.

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