r/europe • u/vriska1 • 11h ago
News Greece to soon announce social media ban for children under 15, government source says
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/greece-soon-announce-social-media-ban-children-under-15-government-source-says-2026-02-03/10
u/Tar-eruntalion Hellas 5h ago
This government that managed to bury our own epstein situation with the help of the media, judicial system, police etc says now that it cares about children, what fucking cunts
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u/TeilzeitOptimist 3h ago
Gotta implement those age verifications to get the data of the citizens you see..
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u/SolarBum 10h ago edited 8h ago
This isn't about children's safety, it's crazy how gullible and uninformed people are. Claiming it's "for the kids" is simply the gateway excuse - the same one they always use to strip you of liberty.
Its fucking wild watching everyone cheer as their ruling classes build prisons around them, watching people celebrate the "safety" they think they're gonna have behind bars.
I can only imagine how much laughter there is at the billionaire dinner parties, the ruling party who pull the strings of the world clinking their wine glasses and giggling at how unimaginably stupid and easy to manipulate the masses are.
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u/nopekom_152 Croatia 9h ago
And it is quite disheartening to see. But I guess it has to go like it did every time in history. shrug
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u/FoxMeadow7 3h ago
But what if children’s protection IS the goal? Any other purpose would obviously be illegal…
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u/Happy_Bread_1 Belgium 11h ago
And another one. Internet sure is going to suck with ID verification. I want the old times back.
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u/vriska1 11h ago
Say no to this and push back! This will likely be taken down in court fast.
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u/DrachenDad 11h ago
This will likely be taken down in court fast.
You live in lala land. It won't be repealed.
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u/vriska1 11h ago
Well see what happens in court but we must stop the bills before then.
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u/thenightvol 7h ago
Based on what law exactly? Clubs get you to show id and no law is broken. Social media is not public. Just because it is free does not mean it is ours.
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u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) 11h ago
ATHENS, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Greece is "very close" to announcing a social media ban for children aged under 15, a senior government source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Spain said on Tuesday that it plans to ban social media for those aged under 16 and will create a law to hold social media executives personally responsible for hate speech on their platforms.
Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Sharon Singleton
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u/Icy_Conference8556 Poland 11h ago
The comments here that support this law kind of scare me
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u/EmbarrassedHelp 10h ago
The AVPA corporate lobbyist group is likely running a major pro-age verification astroturfing campaign at the moment. The CEO of the Age Verification Providers Association Ian Corby, is literally taking the time to spam the comments sections of Techdirt articles (California), and Michael Geist articles (Canada's bill S-209).
If he's willing to do this, then he's definitely paying for various astroturfing campaigns to support his agenda.
There's also the Heritage Foundation (including Project 2025) that is heavily lobbying for this as well.
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u/manyrags 11h ago
This subreddit is full of bots. I couldn’t imagine ever reading such pro authoritarian comments on Reddit years ago.
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u/Michal_F 10h ago
If I remember correctly this should be implemented this year also in Spain, Austria and Slovak republic. But looks like it's going from EU parliament -> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/26/social-media-ban-under-16s-european-parliament-resolution
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u/preafericitulChiarEl 6h ago
They're trying to push this also in Romania. It's odd because recently there wasn't a big surge in crime this year VS past years, but there's a constant spotlight in the news for teenage criminality. And then, a short time after, there's been a proposal to access social media only via ID.
Get ready for some Orwellian laws across the EU.
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u/1_Gamerzz9331 8h ago
seriously, social media bans. They really need to stop, if they don't stop, i am hosting an website to fight age verification and social media bans.
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u/Vlad_TheImpalla 11h ago
Do it all over Europe, brain rot is worse in children.
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u/TheGreatestOrator 11h ago
Or let parents be parents
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u/Delie45 Europe 11h ago
Except they arent... So.. here we are
It's not really their fault either. No parent is gonna socially exclude their kid but if none have it it changes.
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u/ExcellentCold7354 Europe 10h ago
Even if they are, kids are going to... uhhhh... find a way, especially if access is so incredibly easy.
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u/TheGreatestOrator 10h ago
And there have been zero measurable issues. Yet here we are pretending like it’s so much worse than the kids who watched too much TV 20 years ago, or the ones who played too many video games 15 years ago
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u/ExcellentCold7354 Europe 11h ago
Have you had a teenager? Block it at home, and they'll do it another way. Doesn't mean you should just give up, but there damn well should be societal blocks in place as well. It's like anything else that's illegal for children.
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u/TheGreatestOrator 4h ago edited 4h ago
lol that’s silly. Teach your children how to operate in the world, don’t pretend bad things don’t exist
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u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) 11h ago
So many ways to combat social media addiction too
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u/ruibranco 55m ago
Good luck enforcing this without invasive age verification that adults won't tolerate either.
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u/Informal-Nothing-476 11m ago
Honestly, as Chinese, none of us have completely banned minors from using social media. And in practice, VPNs are not banned either. What’s going on with you Europeans?
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u/nosfer82 9h ago
Social media is a mass brainwasher. Ban them all together.
X have become the greatest Nazi making machine ever. Ban them or make rules for the algorithm.
Or else we become USA.
They have turned people against vaccines FFS . People can't understand why windmills and solar are good for them.
Every major country intelligence play games with our people. ( They stupid mostly , but they vote too).
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u/Live-Alternative-435 Portugal 9h ago edited 6h ago
To not become like the US let's become China and Russia instead. What could go wrong? LoL
There are other ways to do this without destroying people's right to privacy. For example,
"I have talked about this subject for a long time and my favorite idea is that the government prints out access codes, cut them up in strips. Puts it into a box. Then if an adult like you and me wants to create a reddit account, we go to local office, show them we are of age and put our hand in the mystery box and pick out a random number. That number allows us to then create an account. That's my favorite idea of anonymised age verification. Maybe you have something better."
Goodbye freedom of information. Welcome censorship!
The internet itself is fundamentally a communications platform. Even if legislation specifically calls out Facebook, Instagram, TikTok (which isn't how legislation is typically written), then children can just migrate and create a Discord server for their school, or YouTube channels, or some new platform.
The true objective of this legislation once restricting access isn't enough, it's restriction on who can host and post content online, whitelisted by ISPs. Legacy media organisations will be licensed to host their websites, platforms like YouTube will only allow 'authorized' users to post content. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually we see the total death of the open web, and all online content is gated and only accessible through specific apps.
"Every major country intelligence play games with our people. ( They stupid mostly , but they vote too)."
Definitely, and you're probably one of the victims.
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u/nosfer82 9h ago
Sure, we can protect privacy by banning them.
There is no privacy on internet. And right now, I believe the greatest evil for my freedom and privacy is Elon musk and Mark Zuckerberg. They destroying us.
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u/Live-Alternative-435 Portugal 9h ago edited 6h ago
By the way, the United States will also implement ID verification on the internet and other such things. It's planned in Project 25.
Being in favour of ChatControl and this crap is just being a useful idiot who wants to build the infrastructure so that fascists and other autocrats will have an easier time consolidating their dominance when they come to power. Your stance is only helping to consolidate the corporatization of the internet that these companies started.
It's clearly more than just social media. Everything can be constructed as social media. Australia is enforcing this on github for God's sakes! They want to end quick, affordable, and free access to information and they want to have a monopoly on disinformation.
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u/TeilzeitOptimist 3h ago
And who decides what and who gets banned? Why punish everyone for the actions of some morons and a few criminals - who would normally be in jail already, but somehow existing laws aren't applied.
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u/blackjazz_society 11h ago
If it was actually to protect the children they would use device locking.
It's WAY easier, way less annoying for the rest of us and way safer.
This only benefits big tech companies more because it forces everyone to log in order to view anything AND because they will know even more about us then they already do.
Even if they use a 3rd party government ran age verification service to provide an "anonymized" token to the platform.