Without bans or digital legal age: the EU does not tighten protection for minors online.

BrusselsPressure from some member states has had no effect. After at least France, Spain, and Greece. called for the creation of a digital majority 16-year-olds to limit minors' access to apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, the European Commission presented a series of recommendations on Monday. That is, it has proposed measures to increase protection for minors on social media without implementing bans.

The first measure proposed by Brussels is to avoid designs that could be addictive to underage consumers. Some of these practices are:scroll (content scrolling) automatic and infinite, automatic playback when a content ends, the record of streaks or days or hours that they have been connected or that makes them not interact and, among others, the reading records: that is, having information about when a user reads a message or has entered the platform.

The European Commission's roadmap also recommends empowering minors to block or mute users and ensuring they are not added to groups they do not want to be in. It also advocates banning the option of taking screenshots or downloading content posted by minors online to prevent the distribution of intimate or sexualized content by users under 18.

On the other hand, Brussels also wants platforms to pay more attention to the "explicit opinions" of minors. This means that if a user under 18 says they don't want to see certain content, the algorithm won't repeat it. Furthermore, the European Commission is committed to ensuring that social media profiles of minors are not visible to people they don't have added as friends or followers.

Several of these recommendations have already been implemented at the EU or national level for some time, and since they are not legislative proposals, none of them are mandatory for state or regional administrations in the European Union.

Brussels ignores Spain's request.

With this plan, the European Commission has ignored the request made by Spain, France, and Greece in a letter seen by ARA. In it, they urged Brussels to promote EU regulations that, among other things, require all electronic devices marketed in the EU that can connect to the internet—and, therefore, have access to social media—to have parental verification.

These countries also called for the "introduction of a digital majority age in the EU" for accessing social media. However, they do not clarify what age would allow internet browsing without any mandatory parental controls.

In fact, France has already passed two laws requiring platforms to verify the age of their users, but this legislation is not enforced. The reason is that the companies accuse the French authorities of not respecting the European framework for digital services, which does not require age controls. That's why it wants legislative change at the European level and is seeking allied countries to support it, such as Spain.

However, as Moncloa had previously announced, Brussels has confirmed that Spain and four other countries (Denmark, France, Greece, and Italy) will deploy a pilot program for an app that verifies the age of users of devices with internet access.