Ban social media for under 15s, says French report warning of TikTok dangers:
French children under 15 should be banned from social media and there should be an overnight "digital curfew" for 15-18 year olds, a parliamentary commission has recommended.
The six-month inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors has found that the short video-sharing platform "knowingly exposes our children, our young people to toxic, dangerous and addictive content".
"We must force TikTok to rethink its model," says the commission, which heard testimony from teenagers and the families of young victims.
TikTok responded saying it categorically rejected the commission's "misleading characterisation of our platform" which sought to "scapegoat our company on industry-wide and societal challenges".
"TikTok has an ongoing robust trust and safety programme with more than 70 features and settings designed specifically to support the safety and well-being of teens and families on our platform," a spokesperson said in a statement.
The company's measures have however failed to impress the French cross-party commission of inquiry, which describes TikTok as one of the worst social media platforms - "a production line of distress" for young people. It argues Tiktok it has failed to take sufficient action to reduce teenagers being exposed to "a spiral of harmful content".
The recommendations of the French parliamentary inquiry come hard on the heels of an Australian social media ban for children under the age of 16 which comes into force on 10 December. "Age‐restricted social media platforms" such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube will face steep fines if they fail to take "reasonable steps"to bar under-16s from holding accounts.
[...] Among the 43 recommendations of the French inquiry team aimed at getting French children "out of the TikTok trap" are:
a ban on social media for under-15s
no use of the apps overnight from 22:00-08:00 to prevent overnight scrolling
a ban on mobile phones in school
and, in the coming years, a crime of digital negligence for parents who fail to protect their children.
Lead inquiry author Laure Miller explained that the idea of an offence for parents of digital negligence was really just an extension of existing law.
"If a six-year-old child spends seven hours a day in front of TikTok, we can ask ourselves the question: 'are their safety and morality really protected by their parents?'," she told reporters.
France is among several EU countries pushing to limit children's use of social media. Denmark is also considering a social media ban for under-15s and Spain's government has sent to parliament a draft law for under-16s to require their legal guardians to authorise access.
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The Absurd Pirate's Internet Blog asks, is gen alpha screwed?:
However, I do think there is a STARK contrast between a curated show from the 90s-00s and a show like Cocomelon that is designed to be like heroin for babies. I walked in on my MIL and daughter watching Cocomelon together one time, and it was jarring seeing how, for one, low effort the animation and songs are, and two, how stimulating this show is, between the incredibly saturated colors to the jump cuts every second. What I learned was that this show uses focus groups of children to make it so there is not a break in the concentration. If a kid shifts his eyes away from the screen, the scene gets edited to address that.
Companies are literally designing everything for addiction these days. Trying to get you hooked on whatever they can profit off of as early in your development as possible.
The points raised there are discussed further by Andre Franca. He adds,
The author also mentions the "mental death" of parenting under modern life, and I totally get that. There are days when I'm so drained that a screen feels like a life raft, so the comparison of high-stimulant shows to "baby heroin" makes total sense to me. That crap is bad enough for an adult; for a child, it can be devastating. I've watched my oldest son's behavior shift in real-time depending on what he's consuming. When it's junk, he turns into different person - more reactive, less patient. It makes me realize that parenting today is largely about shielding them from a culture that wants to outsource their development to an algorithm.
What happens when a substantial portion of a whole generation achieves an age of majority with an nearly complete substitution of life experience for exposure to mindless digital heroin?
Previously:
(2025) Ban Social Media for Under 15s, Says French Report Warning of TikTok Dangers
(2025) Social Media Is Dead – Here's What Comes Next
(2015) Kids These Days: Six or Seven Nicknamed Generations
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday September 19 2025, @11:55PM (1 child)
Do that, AND ban old people from Facebook, and make IT go away!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2025, @02:15AM
The better thing would be to ban the use of prepackaged algorithms to serve up content that people aren't actively looking for. That's the real issue. And even more so when paired with other tactics to try to trap people on the site. Sure, some of us have spent far too much time on regular fora, but it's definitely gotten worse since sites like FB, X, YouTube and the like figured out that they could apply the same sort of stuff that had previously been reserved for casinos to social media.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by corey on Saturday September 20 2025, @12:05AM (8 children)
I’ve got a couple of kids under 10 so this is pertinent. I also am in Australia, where in a couple of months we’ll have a ban of the big social media sites (including YouTube) for under-16s. The kids school bans smartphones at school, and it’s out in the bush anyway so there isn’t much reception. They had sent out a link earlier this year to Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation, which I intend to read. I recently heard him interviewed on The Happiness Lab podcast and it was jarring what he said the science is starting to show. There’s a hockey-stick curve up in thethe rate of mental health in adolescents starting in 2010, when social media was in full swing, and the start of Tik Tok. He shows it on his website:
https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/ [jonathanhaidt.com]
From what I can tell, social media makes kids into brand managers, which isn’t good for them. Plus there’s the bullying etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2025, @02:12AM (2 children)
Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke calls out the same basic thing. Hitting dopamine rewarding activities isn't inherently a problem, but too much of it while also avoiding things that are more inducing of painful and unpleasant experiences can cause a bunch of issues. I've personally been putting some of the recommendations into practice the last couple weeks and I feel a lot better than I have in years.
(Score: 2) by corey on Sunday September 21 2025, @08:37AM (1 child)
Thanks. I’ll check those out too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2025, @08:43PM
As pointed out in the book, I've started taking "James Bond" showers, completely stopped using YouTube and set up my computer with DigitalZen to help manage the websites I access and programs I use. It's been a definite improvement, although, I do still have a few things to work out. But, I'm definitely notice more thoughts popping into my head like "I see that sitting where it doesn't belong, perhaps put it away." than I used to.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Saturday September 20 2025, @05:01AM (4 children)
Haidt's book is excellent, even if a bit repetitive. Jacob Ward's book, The Loop, is very good too and covers a lot of the same topics and material though has a much longer introduction/lead in to get through. I recommend both. They both do a great job of looking at social control media from a public health angle. However, neither address the core problem I see which is that these "apps" are weapons intended to undermine the West.
I've commented before on that, using the example of Bytedance's Tiktok as covered back in 2022 by CBS 60 Minutes [cbsnews.com]. Basically there is a domestic version for inside Red China which allows no more than 40 minutes per child per day, and then only during reasonable hours, with those 40 minutes filled exclusively with educational (for some definition of educational) and science videos. That is the "spinach" version. In contrast, the other countries, especially the West, get the "opium" version designed to maximize destructive and addictive behavior while keeping the kids emotionally engaged with the service the maximum possible number of waking hours.
If that is too abstract, take a look at how social control media was recently used to completely overturn the government of Nepal undemocratically through online-instigated violence. It took less than a few days of arson, violent protests, and killings for the Nepalese government to capitulate completely. Nepal has just over 29M people, just over 28 M in Australia, and just over 66 M in France, the subject of TFA. The UK has a population of just under 70 M, yet it's government was completely walked over by social control media which orchestrated Brexit [ted.com] (see transcript at link). So while the public health aspects are very critical to solve, and a ban is IMHO the only way, the policy makers are turning a blind eye to the main purpose of social control media which is that of weaponized propaganda and mass manipulation of opinion, aimed in particular at destroying Gen Alpha. Old people are just collateral damage, bonus points as it were.
If you followed Dilbert to the end, you saw the last few strips where the message was repeated: he who controls Bytedance's Tiktok, controlls the world. France, and everywhere else, needs to wise up to not just the public health aspects but the nature of the weapon aimed at Gen Alpha.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Saturday September 20 2025, @04:45PM
You've misspelled the "attention economy". There is very little difference between any of the "social" platforms -- they all drive people apart and radicalize whatever viewpoint you've had for ability to show you that 1 more ad.
(Score: 2) by corey on Sunday September 21 2025, @08:18AM (2 children)
Interesting, I hadn’t thought about it like that. Whilst it sounds conspiracy-like, it is having that effect. Where’s the evidence that it’s all planned to be as such (other than the restriction in usage in China, because that could be just another good side effect of autocratic information control they have)?
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday September 21 2025, @11:24AM
It is a conspiracy if they are actively conspiring, something which several anti-Western groups appear to be doing.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday September 23 2025, @05:41AM
Where’s the evidence that it’s all planned to be as such (other than the restriction in usage in China, because that could be just another good side effect of autocratic information control they have)?
A recent Wired article discusses and links to a report on that.
Again, it is a conspiracy if they are actively conspiring [cambridge.org], something which they are giving every appearance of doing.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Captival on Saturday September 20 2025, @04:05PM (1 child)
But if they want to cut their genitals off, you're Hitler if you don't allow it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2025, @12:33AM
Who precisely is saying that children should get that sort of medical procedure? The most I hear people saying is that they should be allowed medical interventions like hormones on top of being allowed to use their preferred pronoun, name and being allowed to dress in a way that's more in keeping with their internal sense of self. Cutting things off at that age is just not something that anybody other than the most extreme people are going for.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by VLM on Saturday September 20 2025, @09:07PM (1 child)
It won't save them.
People with addictive personalities will destroy their lives some other way. Possibly in a way worse than tik tok.
Its like trying to stop alcoholics by banning rum. Not every other form of liquor just rum.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2025, @09:18PM
There's no such thing as an "addictive personality." That's just something that Libertarians and their ilk like to say as a way of justifying a lack of action on things like drugs or social media companies. It's a maladaptive way of handling real problems that should be properly addressed.