Μake us preferred on Google

Before we ban children from connecting, we need to talk about our own disconnection from responsibility. About the times a screen took the place of our presence. About how readily we assumed that a child sitting quietly with a phone was also safe. And about the companies that profit for as long as that child stays connected. A child losing sleep over social media does not need another lecture on self-discipline. They need adults willing to take responsibility for the world we have handed them. We cannot ask children to put right, on their own, everything we allowed to become their everyday reality.

On 23 October 2026, the Greek Parliament approved a ban on access to social media for children under fifteen, to take effect on 1 January 2027. According to AFP, the framework provides for age verification and penalties for companies that fail to comply. This is a significant intervention in an area where parents are often left to confront problems far beyond any household’s capacity to resolve. Yet the severity of an announcement is not proof of protection. That will be judged by children’s lives, not the government’s image. A law can change the rules of access. It cannot, on its own, make up for the absence of care.

I would not underestimate the relief of a parent who feels that someone is finally listening. Behind the debate about screen time lie arguments, anxiety and children who may feel that their worth is measured by the approval of strangers. Cyberbullying does not end when the school bell rings. It can follow a child into their bedroom, where they should feel safe. The state has no right to respond to all this merely by telling parents to pay closer attention. When protection depends on how much time and knowledge each household has, it is not equally available to every child.

Parents, however, cannot remain outside this discussion either. Their own exhaustion, the burnout of daily life, combined with limited digital knowledge or a superficial understanding, can encourage them to hand over a screen from a very early age, without consistent boundaries. Knowing how to use an app does not mean we understand how it affects a child. When a phone is routinely handed over to secure a little peace and quiet, responsibility cannot later be shifted entirely onto the child who struggles to put it down. Exhaustion explains a choice; it does not make it harmless. And partial knowledge becomes particularly dangerous when it is mistaken for sufficient understanding. This does not mean that all parents are indifferent, or that they are the sole cause. It means they need support and meaningful guidance, not collective blame, but not absolution from all responsibility either.

This is also why an age-based ban should not automatically be dismissed as authoritarian. There is a serious argument for a common threshold: protection cannot depend solely on each family’s time, knowledge and endurance. A limit can reduce the pressure a child feels to be there because all their friends are there. It can give parents something to lean on. But a useful boundary is not a comprehensive policy. Adults’ relief must not be confused with children’s safety.

The ban determines who is allowed in. On its own, it does not answer what they will encounter once they are entitled to enter. On their fifteenth birthday, teenagers do not suddenly become immune to social pressure, bullying or the practices that keep them in front of a screen. If the digital environment remains just as harmful, we will have postponed exposure to danger without adequately addressing its source. A date of birth does not fix a platform’s design. Unless the environment itself changes, the ban risks delaying exposure rather than meaningfully reducing the risk.

Europe is not starting from scratch. The Digital Services Act imposes obligations to protect minors on platforms covered by the relevant provisions. The European Commission’s guidelines, presented in July 2025, include recommendations on addictive design, harmful content and bullying. These recommendations do not, in themselves, constitute a new binding law. They do show, however, that platform responsibility already has a basis in regulation. What matters is that compliance is monitored and obligations are enforced. A new ban cannot substitute for enforcing obligations that already exist.

That requires the political will to place limits on profitable practices. Safe default settings, meaningful responses to complaints, scrutiny of content recommendation systems and restrictions on features that encourage relentless use must be central to the effort. Asking a child to resist, alone, features designed to hold their attention is not serious policymaking. The state’s resolve will also be tested where protection requires changes that cost companies money, not only where it imposes restrictions on users.

Then there is privacy. Enforcing an age threshold requires reliable confirmation of age. This does not necessarily mean that a platform needs to know a user’s name or exact date of birth. The European approach includes technical solutions that allow users to prove they meet an age threshold without disclosing their identity to the service. Mass identification, therefore, cannot be presented as the inevitable price of safety. We must demand data minimisation, independent oversight and a way to correct errors when a system gets it wrong. Protecting a child does not give us a blank cheque over their personal data.

Nor can we forget that a child is a rights-holder, not simply an object of surveillance. A teenager may go online in search of a creative community, information or people who understand a difficulty they cannot find the words to express to those around them. That does not make every platform safe. But it does oblige us to examine what a blanket measure takes away, alongside what it seeks to prevent. We do not meaningfully protect children when we refuse to listen to their own experiences. Being a minor warrants particular care; it does not invalidate their voice.

This is where proportionality ceases to be an abstract legal term. A restriction must serve a legitimate aim, be suitable for achieving it and go no further than necessary. Are there less restrictive interventions that would offer equivalent protection? Is the burden on privacy, expression and access to information excessive in relation to the intended benefit? Protecting minors is a compelling reason to intervene, not permission to bypass these questions. The state must substantiate its choice. Invoking our anxiety is not enough to secure our consent. The more serious the purpose, the greater the responsibility to justify the means used to achieve it.

Legality and effectiveness must be assessed separately, without confusing one with the other. A measure can be lawful and achieve very little in practice. Conversely, reducing harmful behaviour does not automatically make it legitimate if it disproportionately infringes rights. The two tests are connected, since a measure’s suitability forms part of proportionality, but they are not identical. ‘It was passed’ does not mean ‘it succeeded’, any more than ‘it works’ means ‘it is permissible at any cost’.

We also need the honesty to measure results. Will exposure to harmful content decrease? Will bullying be reduced, or will it move into less closely monitored spaces? Who will be wrongly excluded, and how will they obtain redress? The possibility of circumvention does not prove that every restriction is futile. It proves that passing the law is not the end of the work, but the beginning. A government has a duty to make public what works and correct what fails, even if doing so undermines its own celebrations. Admitting a failure is an act of responsibility. Preserving it for the sake of prestige is not.

Protection cannot always come after the harm. Apps change, ways around restrictions multiply, and the traps take new forms. Safeguards need regular reassessment and rapid adjustment, with clear responsibilities and deadlines for action. New features need to be assessed before they are made available to minors, and emerging risks identified as early as possible. Prevention cannot wait for a child to be hurt each time before acknowledging that there was a problem. A safeguard that remains unchanged while the danger evolves may retain its name, but not its protective value. Speed, however, must not become an excuse for unchecked restrictions: new safeguards also require transparency and oversight.

And when a child puts down the phone, what will they find beyond the screen? They need a school that teaches them how digital services work, where to seek help and how to recognise manipulation. They need accessible places for sport and creativity, support when they struggle, and adults available to listen. These needs did not begin with social media, and closing an account will not meet them. They require resources and sustained care, long after the day of a government announcement. If the same loneliness awaits them beyond the screen, we have closed one escape route without opening a better one. A ban is easier than creating a world in which a child wants, and is able, to participate. We have no right to sidestep that harder task.

I hope for a state that protects children without treating them as suspects and without leaving parents alone. One that can impose limits on companies with the same determination it brings to imposing them on minors. A state that will not consider its duty fulfilled simply because it has said ‘prohibited’. The measure must be judged by whether it makes their lives safer, not by how strict it sounds. Because if we restrict children’s access without changing what leaves them unprotected, will we have protected them, or merely soothed our own conscience?