Young people's message is clear: protecting them online requires effective regulation, accountable platforms, supportive parenting and meaningful youth participation. Above all, they want their voices to be heard and their perspectives to shape the decisions that affect their digital lives.
Beyond the social media ban
Social media brings risks for children, from harmful content to algorithms designed to keep them scrolling. But it also offers opportunities to connect, learn and express themselves. Banning young people from social media may seem like a simple solution, but it does not address the root of the problem.
What does this mean in practice for young people?
Children need protection online, not exclusion from digital life. Blanket bans risk limiting their access to social connections and information, while shifting responsibility away from the platforms that design these environments.
How do we make the online world safer?
Euroconsumers calls for stronger enforcement of existing EU laws, safer platform design by default, greater transparency, effective reporting tools and age-appropriate protection. Young people must also have a meaningful voice in shaping the rules that affect them.
Our call
Children should not have to choose between being safe online and participating in digital life. The solution is to hold platforms accountable and make the online world safer for everyone.
Panels and meetings where this case was on the table. Everything we said is on the record.
Letters, complaints and collective actions, with the documents that back them.
