A push for a teenagerless internet is gaining ground in Europe. It wouldn’t exactly be teenagerless, but if regulators in countries such as Spain and the Czech Republic are successful, young people under 16 years old would be banned from social media apps, including Instagram and Snapchat.
On February 3, 2026, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced his country’s plans to implement an under-16 ban from social media. “We will protect them from the digital wild west,” he said in a speech at the World Governments Summit in Dubai. Greece, Turkey, Poland, and Portugal were also in support, announcing plans for draft laws in their respective countries.
In France, things have gone further. A lower chamber of the parliament voted in favor of a ban targeting users under 15 years old. It’s now on its way to the French Senate.
Several days after Sánchez’s speech, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis echoed the sentiment, expressing his support for such bans. “I am in favor because the experts I know say that it is terribly harmful to children. We must protect our children,” Babis said in a video statement.
Beyond individual countries, the European Union is considering a ban for kids under 16 across all of its 27 members. They would join Australia, which became the first major country to ban under-16 users from social media in December 2025.
These countries, in one respect, are looking to shield their young people from the negative parts of social media. It’s no secret that it harms some teenagers; social media can be distracting, and it can lead to body image issues. Cyberbullying is also a concern, as is posting something they might regret later. (And because everything lives forever on the internet, it could follow them through to adulthood.)
It should be noted that the research on teens and social media harm can be murky, as there isn’t a shared definition of what social media even is.
Big tech in the U.S. is understandably not happy about these potential bans. Meta, which operates Instagram (one of the biggest social media networks for teens), has appealed to Australian regulators to reverse course. And when Elon Musk learned the recent news about Spain, he took to X to call the prime minister a “true fascist totalitarian,” and “a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Spain.”
There is something else to consider with these bans. In barring teens, everyone will need to prove that they are over the age of 16. And how does that happen? Through age-verification methods like scanning your driver’s license or providing your biometric data. It comes with troubling implications. One of the biggest is that the internet isn’t anonymous anymore, and those who rely on it for their safety, essential information, or vital community resources can be exposed.
Sources: Countries Across Europe Take Action to Ban Social Media for Minors; Spain Aims to Ban Social Media for Children Under 16, Prime Minister Says
Related Articles:
Denmark Moves To Ban Social Media for Children and Teens Under 15
Celebs Warn About AI-Powered Deepfake Videos of Them Advertising Products on Social Media
AI-Generated Images Mimicking Studio Ghibli May Be Banned by Japanese Lawmakers
South Korea Passes Bill Banning Phones During Class Hours in Elementary and Middle Schools
