You can tell when Ursula von der Leyen lands on a turn of phrase she likes. She’ll repeat it in speeches and add the same flourish of emphasis each time.
The European Commission president found one a few weeks back when talking about a possible EU-wide age limit on social media.
The debate shouldn’t be framed around when young people should get access to the platforms, she said. Instead, it’s a question of “when social media has access to our children and teenagers”.
The German head of the EU’s powerful executive body, which churns out regulations, has been under pressure to take a big step on online safety for children.
Von der Leyen rarely agrees to sit-down interviews with the press, instead favouring speeches to get her message across.
Months, yes months, of work went into crafting the one she delivered yesterday in Strasbourg, which the EU executive calls the president’s “state of the union” address to the European Parliament (a tradition since 2010).
For several weeks, the European Commission had a countdown running on its website to tick off the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Von der Leyen stood up to deliver her big speech.
One of the points widely trailed beforehand had been a proposal to prohibit children under the age of 13 from accessing social media.
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“Platforms will have to prove that they are safe, because it is not about our minors accessing social media, it is about when and how do we allow social media to access minors,” she said.
The proposed new rules, which must pass through the lengthy Brussels policymaking ringer, envisage teenagers gradually being allowed on to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and the rest.
Between the ages of 13 and 15, teenagers could have “mini accounts” set up and supervised by their parents, with restricted features and screen-time limits. Tech giants would be required to provide “safer” feeds for the accounts of 16- and 17-year-olds, under the commission’s plans.
Not content with nicking the state-of-the-union theme for the set piece policy speech, the commission has fallen into the very American habit of naming new legislation after a vaguely relevant “backronym”. Hence, the EU Kids Act, or its full title, the Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy Act.
The proposed regulations will surely trigger a fresh row between Brussels officials and Big Tech firms, who fiercely resist having to make changes to their products and have already been waging a fightback against EU guardrails.
It looks like large chunks of separate legislation EU justice commissioner Michael McGrath had been preparing – the Digital Fairness Act – to regulate infinitive scrolling and other addictive features will instead be wrapped into the EU Kids Act.
Von der Leyen’s thinking has been shaped by an expert group. Its report, published this summer, went heavy on this idea of making social media “safe by design” for children and young teenagers.
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Rather than EU regulators launching lengthy investigations to prove certain features are harmful and handing out fines, the companies would have to demonstrate their platforms were safe for minors before being allowed on to the European market. The threat of hefty fines will remain on the table.
Irish Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan has been making a lot of noise calling for an EU-wide social media age limit. However, France, Greece and Spain have led the charge. National legislation tabled by those governments put Brussels under pressure to do something to avoid member states going off in different directions.
The big issue will be proving someone who opens a social media account is 14, 16, or 23. “A harmonised EU age restriction to access social media and other digital services cannot be enforced without an age verification ecosystem that can be used to prove the age of minors,” that recent expert report said.
The commission wants to use an age verification app it is developing alongside an EU “digital identity wallet” scheme already in the works.
A person will upload a photograph of their passport or other identity paperwork once, so their smartphone or device “knows” how old they are, without a copy of the document being retained in the app.
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The wallet has been thought up as a secure, but voluntary, way for people to store a digital record of important documents and an authentication tool when applying for public services online.
It will be politically very fraught for Brussels or national governments to make signing up for the digital wallet scheme, or uploading sensitive documents to an age verification app, an effective requirement for creating a social media profile. That’s where this proposed age ban may run into the most trouble.
