France's Constitutional Council has struck down a key provision of a child protection law that would have banned under-15s from using social media, reports infohub.kz.
The judges deemed the measure a "disproportionate interference with freedom of expression and the dissemination of information."
The law, passed by parliament on July 21, was due to take effect on September 1. It would have prohibited children under 15 from using platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, X, and Instagram (owned by Meta, which is designated as extremist and banned in Russia), as well as social features of services like YouTube.
The restrictions would have covered comments, content-sharing channels, certain messaging apps including WhatsApp (also owned by Meta), and some online games. According to a study by French regulator Arcom, more than two-thirds of children aged 10 to 14 support a ban on social media for their age group.
The Constitutional Council concluded that the ban was disproportionate. In particular, it could have covered internet services whose risks to children's health and safety had not been confirmed. The original bill had provided exceptions for educational and scientific resources, but the Council deemed these exceptions too narrow.
There were also concerns about age verification systems. The law required platforms to implement mechanisms to determine a user's age at registration, but the specific technical conditions for this verification were not specified in the text. The Council noted that the legislator had not provided sufficient safeguards for user privacy.
However, the Council only reviewed the first article of the law, which concerned social media. The judges did not rule on another provision of the same law—the ban on mobile phone use in schools, which is due to take effect on September 1.