Meet Europe’s youth activists pushing back against blanket social media bans

​As European governments discuss stricter social media rules for children under 16, young people say they are being shut out of a conversation that directly affects them. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Supporters of the proposed bans argue they are necessary to protect children from online harms, but youth activists across Europe say a blanket ban is not the answer. Instead, they are calling on policymakers to make platforms safer through stronger regulation, better enforcement, and digital literacy education. In France, Ireland, and the Netherlands, students and youth advocates say social media has become deeply woven into how their generation socialises, learns, organises, and participates in society. ‘One of the few remaining public spaces that is totally free’ Thomas Yaqoubi Reboul and Noe Hamon mobilised the 20 people in their youth movement, Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, ahead of the French parliament’s decision to vote through a bill restricting social media for children under 15. The group wrote amendments to the bill that they sent directly to senators, which proposed regulating the platforms instead of outright banning young users. They noticed that when the bill went forward for a second Senate vote, it was largely modified to include two categories of platforms in France: ones that are “very problematic” and others that are considered “digital tools,” Yaqoubi Reboul said. Their group also brought the debate to the public by publishing opinion pieces in major newspapers such as Le Monde. They also met with young people across the country to hear how the restrictions might impact them. Young people did not know that their digital lives could be restricted, but once informed, they were shocked, Yaqoubi Reboul said. “At first they were like, okay, the ban is great, it will protect us… but when we explained to them that they couldn’t connect anymore to Roblox, to Fortnite, to Instagram or TikTok, they’re like, ‘oh my god, it’s not possible, we have to find another way,’” Yaqoubi Reboul said. He added that the young people they have spoken to know they are at risk on social media, but do not believe that their social space should be constricted. “Social media is one of the few remaining public spaces that is totally free and accessible for young people,” Hamon said. “It also allows them to socialise, to learn things, to create, to have a community spirit,” especially as the physical world becomes “more inaccessible” for young people, he added. Instead, they suggest stronger enforcement of the laws Europe already has, such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA), so online platforms are better regulated.​ ‘Platforms don’t automatically become safer when they turn 18 or 19’ Lauren Bond, 19, is a board member of Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU), an organisation that represents and supports student unions across Europe. Unions have been working on this issue for years at the secondary school level, Bond said, because students are concerned about how the bans could change their daily lives. “They feel that the blame and responsibility to create a safer digital world is really being placed upon them,” she told Euronews Next. These blanket bans do not take into account the lived reality of students, Bond said, noting that students feel like their voices have not been heard. “I can understand how the thought of a blanket ban might seem very appealing … however, the social media platforms that young people are using don’t automatically become safer when they turn 18 or 19,” she said. The young people she’s spoken to believe more in a combination of greater regulation and more investment in digital literacy. Bond said her high school’s investment in digital literacy gave her a healthy relationship with social media. At the age of 11, her teachers conducted exercises with their students on real-life examples of what could happen in the digital world and how to deal with them. That’s not the case for many of her peers, so Bond argues there’s a need for coordinated education throughout Europe. “I think the bare foundations of how we teach digital citizenship in school need to be established because for so many young people, they don’t receive any information on this at all,” she said. “We need to move towards actually bringing this concept into schools first.” ‘Social media can really be the basis of a society’ Niels Zagema was voted by his young Dutch peers to represent their voices in European institutions and he is the Netherlands representative for the European Commission President’s Youth Advisory Board. He said it was immediately clear to him that one of the priorities for his mandate is to work on social media policy issues. “There are not a lot of things that have more impact on young people’s lives than social media,” he told Euronews Next. “Social media can really be the basis of a society - to get information, connection and to get participation.”​ To fulfil his mandate, he said he has spoken to more than a thousand young people in high schools and with experts about the direction that social media restrictions are taking. He said most of the youth he heard from are not in support of social media restrictions despite acknowledging that it could help them control some harmful behaviours, like spending too much time on their phones, he said. Zagena said the solution is a progressive exposure model, where parents and policymakers slowly introduce technologies based on a child’s age. He believes the guidelines in the Netherlands are a good model for Europe. There, parents are asked to progressively show their children how to communicate via chat and then progressively move them towards social media after the age of 15. ‘We grew up with social media, it’s become part of our daily lives’ Growing up in rural Ireland, social media was a “lifeline” for Aisling Maloney, which helped her stay in touch with friends who lived an hour away. Social media was also an access point to a wider world, where she could explore interests and topics that were not covered at her school.​ “It opened up a lot of doorways,” Maloney told Euronews Next. Now a representative for the National Youth Council of Ireland, Maloney said that other children should have the same opportunity to explore what they like online, but in a safe, informed way. “I don't want [young people] to be locked out of this conversation without ever having a chance to be involved in it,” she said. That is why she said she is asking decision-makers to work with young people when discussing whether there should be outright bans or restrictions on social media for children. Maloney has been involved in advocacy work for a while, starting through youth information services in Ireland, which help young people navigate online spaces. “My generation, we grew up with social media, it’s become part of our daily lives from a very young age, even before this kind of conversation around online safety began,” she said. “There needs to be a conversation there for decision makers to kind of walk them through how we use social media.” To her, the solution is not a blanket ban but a combination of legislation to make platforms safer and more digital literacy education. ​Some of the tools that would help young people already exist, such as setting in-app time limits, but Maloney said young people do not know enough about them as social media companies do not promote them enough. Incoming legislation such as the Digital Fairness Act (DFA) could be used to restrict harmful features on social media apps, such as addictive design and data exploitation, Maloney said. But such measures would have to be implemented Maloney said as she does not believe that platforms will be willing to make platforms safer.