Social media: the ban on minors put to the test against fundamental rights
In Europe, governments and institutions are now almost unanimous: given the risks attributed to social media, access to it should be banned for the youngest members of society. But the summer has revealed what this political consensus tends to overlook: a blanket ban conflicts with fundamental rights, and its justification appears far less certain in the eyes of experts and judges than it does to politicians. From… France to Spain, via Denmark, Greece and now Slovakia, several European governments are working to ban or severely restrict young people’s access to social media, whilst European institutions are moving in the same direction. In Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen had set the tone even before the conclusions of the expert group she had set up in early 2026 on children’s online safety…