Associated Press reports that von der Leyen proposed barring children under thirteen from social media, online games and chatbots across the European Union. The plan would allow guardian-supervised mini accounts for children aged thirteen to fifteen. EU member governments would have to approve the proposal.
The Commission framed the measure as protection against addictive design, extreme content and AI-generated sexualized images. No final age-verification technology or privacy standard was specified. Several countries have pursued youth-access restrictions with mixed legal results.
France’s highest court recently rejected one national approach on fundamental-rights grounds. Australia and New Zealand have also considered or adopted age-based controls. Technology companies are likely to contest measures that impose broad identity checks or product restrictions.
The proposal covers chatbots directly, linking AI product design to the wider child-safety debate. Age assurance can itself create privacy and data-security risks. Platform bans differ from limits on particular features such as recommendation algorithms.
EU legislation requires negotiation among institutions and member states. A speech proposal is not yet an enforceable rule.
The available record for “EU Proposes Under-13 Ban for Social Media, Games and Chatbots” comes from Associated Press. In the EU Proposes Under-13 Ban for Social Media, Games and Chatbots record, statements made by governments, companies, officials, researchers or witnesses remain attributed to those parties; the fact that a source reports a statement establishes that the statement was made, not that every disputed claim within it has been independently proved. For EU Proposes Under-13 Ban for Social Media, Games and Chatbots, preliminary counts, proposals, charges, estimates and company claims remain provisional wherever the underlying reporting identifies them that way.
The principal evidentiary limit for EU Proposes Under-13 Ban for Social Media, Games and Chatbots is that the legal text, enforcement method and rights safeguards were not available. The next reported developments for this specific story are Commission draft legislation. and Member-state and data-protection authority responses.