What is EU's proposed Digital Majority Age which Meta is supporting?

Meta – which owns Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp – came out with a blog post earlier today wherein they announced support for Digital Majority Age, a proposal put forward by some of the member states of the European Union aimed at controling minors’ access to the Internet, especially social media platforms.

“We believe this can be an effective solution to the industry-wide challenge of ensuring teens have safe, age-appropriate experiences online,” the company said.

So, what exactly is this Digital Majority Age proposal? Well, the proposal broadly outlines three major requirements. Firstly, there should be a minimum age below which teens or kids should not be allowed to access certain online platforms. Secondly, there should be parental controls in place, especially for app downloads. And thirdly, the devices teens use should have robust age verification systems in place.

While the proposal, in its current form, mainly focuses on framing rules for kids’ access to social media platforms, Meta wants it to be extended to all kinds of digital services teens use. Here’s what the company exactly said in this regard:

Any new provisions should apply broadly across the digital services teens use — not just to social media platforms. Teens engage with a variety of apps – at least 40 apps per week on average, including gaming, streaming, messaging, and browsing. Focusing only on social media would miss the full picture and could push teens toward unregulated and less safe digital spaces

The Digital Majority Age proposal has been put forward by France, Spain and Greece, and Meta’s support for it comes shortly after Denmark (which recently took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union) set age verification as one of its priorities.

Beyond these member countries, many other countries, like Spain, have also made official their concerns regarding minors’ access to social media platforms. Not stopping at just raising concerns, France – another EU member state – recently announced the country may in fact ban social media usage for teens below 15 years of age.

In this regard, Meta’s announcement also made it clear the company does not support any kind of ban.

To be clear, our support for an EU-wide Digital Majority Age is not an endorsement of government mandated social media bans. Bans take away parental authority, focus narrowly on one type of online service among the nearly two million apps available to teens, and overlook how teens use social media to connect with the world around them, grow and learn. Bans also fail to acknowledge the differences that exist between different services and varying levels of protections they offer

Last year, Meta announced Teen Accounts, which the company termed as “Built-In Protections for Teens, Peace of Mind for Parents.” And more recently, the company shared the steps it has taken to make the program more beneficial for everyone involved.

The company has also recently started banning Facebook and Instagram accounts that are found guilty of Child Sexual Abuse. However, as we have covered extensively, the effort – lead by AI – has reportedly ended up shoveling out a lot of innocent accounts as well.