CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Sensible Invalidations: Striking Down France’s Social Media Ban for Minors

Photo by Jay Openiano

Restricting access to social media platforms to children of a certain age has become something of a spreading mania.  This prohibitionist urge has captured the interest of governments for its shallow, meretricious appeal.  Refusing to deal with the actual conduct of the social media giants, notably in terms of their odious brand of surveillance capitalism and its influence on adults and children, preference has been shown for populist, crowing measures that focus on prohibition over education.

On August 14, France’s Constitutional Council struck down legislation banning the use of social media by persons under the age of 15 years, a law that had been passed making France the first European country to do so.  (Australia had been the first off the rank in December last year.)  The provisions would have come into force in January 2027.  The law, initially titled “Loi visant à protéger les mineurs face aux risques associés à l’usage des réseaux sociaux” (Law aiming to protect minors from the risks associated with social media usage) had been adopted by the French Parliament on July 21 with the ostensible intention of addressing the ills arising from social media use by young persons, with anxiety, depression and sleep disorders being among them.

In invalidating Article 1 of the bill as contrary to the French Constitution, the Council found that the blanket restriction was disproportionate in nature.  The scope of the measure was regarded as unduly excessive and, if we can get a measure of the court’s mood, sloppy.  The ban, defined by cross-referencing the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act via Article 6 of France’s June 21, 2004 law, covered “access to any online platform allowing end users to connect and communicate with one another, share content and discover other users and other content”.  Such access, however, was “not subject to any condition relating to the functionalities or content offered,........

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