Big tech has captured childhood itself, hooking kids on feeds engineered to keep them scrolling for four to six hours a day while parents watch the fallout in lost sleep, anxiety, self-harm and even suicide. Enough is enough — no social media under 13, supervised mini accounts until 15 and safe design obligations after that. Platforms must prove they're safe, because Europe writes the rules, not Silicon Valley.
Mandatory age checks mean every adult in Europe hands over a photo ID or a face scan just to log on, killing online privacy for everyone in the name of protecting kids. Age gates are no silver bullet anyway — blocking access until 15 doesn't fix predatory, addictive, manipulative design, it just delays the exposure. The real fix is forcing platforms to be safe, not building a bloc-wide identity checkpoint.
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