France vows to extend age checks to social media platforms

French lawmakers have expressed support for age verification measures on social media, to reduce the likelihood of children coming across disturbing content.

The country's parliament has already endorsed measures to force porn websites to verify the age of users, or face stiff penalties by the French state.

Laurent Marcangeli, a member of parliament from President Emmanuel Macron's allied party Horizons, notes that "In 2021, 63 percent of children under 13 had an account on at least one social network".

The politician, who is behind new legislation on social media, said this "is a violation of the general terms of use of the main platforms concerned" which are supposed to enforce a 13 plus age limit.

Critics have argued that social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram should have a much higher age limit given sexually explicit and disturbing content that's viewable.

The new French legislation would require social media platforms to block access to minors under 15 — unless they have authorization from their parents — or face huge fines.

In the UK, politicians are considering measures in the Online Safety Bill to introduce age verification on pornographic websites, and there are calls for social media platforms to be included.

CARE has championed age checks for a number of years and successfully campaigned for measures that were backed by parliament in 2017, but later dropped by the government.

Policy experts at CARE will be urging parliamentarians to consider putting a range of safeguarding measures into the online safety regime, and introduce age checks quickly.