In a bold step to address growing concerns over adolescent mental health, Greece has announced sweeping new regulations that will bar all users under the age of 15 from accessing social media platforms, joining a expanding wave of national governments across the globe moving to restrict minors’ exposure to potentially harmful online environments.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis framed the policy as a targeted response to three interconnected crises: soaring rates of anxiety, chronic sleep disruption among young Greeks, and the intentional “addictive design” embedded into many major social media platforms. The restriction is scheduled to go into effect starting in January 2025, with full details of the enforcement and regulatory framework set to be released later the same day the announcement was made.
Mitsotakis shared the initiative in a public video message posted to TikTok, where he outlined the personal feedback that drove the policy change. “Many young people tell me they feel exhausted from comparisons, from comments, from the pressure to always be online,” he said, adding that he had heard consistent reports from parents about children struggling with poor sleep, constant anxiety, and compulsive phone use.
The prime minister stressed that the ban is not an attempt to cut young people off from digital technology entirely, noting that digital tools can be powerful sources of inspiration, knowledge, and creative growth. “But the addictive design of certain applications, and a business model based on capturing your attention – on how long you stay in front of a screen – takes away your innocence and your freedom,” he argued. “That has to stop somewhere.”
Beyond Greece’s national borders, Mitsotakis is pushing for coordinated action across the European Union. In a formal letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he called for a unified EU regulatory framework to “complement and reinforce the necessary national initiatives for the protection of minors.” His proposed regional rules include mandatory age verification for all users across every platform, a continent-wide ban on social media access for under-15s, and a requirement that platforms re-verify all users’ ages every six months to prevent workarounds.
Greece is far from alone in pursuing strict limits on minor social media use. Australia made global history last December when it became the first country to mandate that major platforms including TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat remove all accounts belonging to users under 16, with steep financial penalties for non-compliance. Several other EU nations, including France, Austria and Spain, have already advanced similar regulatory proposals. The United Kingdom has opened a public consultation on a proposed ban for under-16s, while Ireland and Denmark are currently evaluating comparable measures.
Industry stakeholders have pushed back heavily against broad, age-based restrictions. Social media companies argue that blanket bans are impractical to enforce, ineffective at achieving their stated goals, and risk leaving vulnerable, socially isolated teenagers cut off from critical online support networks. Reddit has already launched a legal challenge to Australia’s new under-16 ban, contesting the law in court.
The global conversation around minor social media use has sharpened dramatically in recent months, fueled by mounting research linking heavy early social media exposure to negative mental health outcomes, and a high-profile legal ruling in the United States. In a landmark March trial, a jury found Meta and YouTube liable for contributing to a young woman’s childhood social media addiction. Jurors determined that Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, which owns YouTube, intentionally designed platforms to be addictive, causing measurable harm to the plaintiff’s mental health. Both companies have rejected the verdict and announced plans to appeal, with Meta arguing that teen mental health is a complex issue with no single cause that can be pinned on one platform.
As more nations move to implement national restrictions, the push for a coordinated EU framework signals a growing shift toward tighter global regulation of big tech’s impact on children and adolescents.