The three parties that have formed the new Dutch minority government have pitched raising the European minimum age for social media to 15, according to coalition plans unveiled on Friday.
With the move, the Netherlands is the latest country to push for a de facto social media ban at 15, following France’s example. The three Dutch parties — the centrist D66, the Christian Democrat CDA and the liberal VVD — will still need to seek support for their proposals, as they hold only 66 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament.
The parties want an “enforceable European minimum age of 15 for social media, with privacy-friendly age verification for young people, as long as social media are not sufficiently safe,” they write in the plans. The current EU minimum age stands at 13.
The coalition program also envisions a crackdown on screen time through prevention and health guidance, and stricter smartphone rules in schools, which will require devices to remain at home or in a locker.
In June of last year, the previous Dutch government issued guidance to parents to wait until age 15 before allowing their children to use social media.
Earlier this week, a bill to ban social media for users under 15 passed the French parliament’s lower chamber and could take effect in September.
Australia paved the way by banning children from a range of platforms in December.
The new Dutch government also is launching a push to become more digitally sovereign and to reduce “strategic dependencies” in areas such as cloud services and data.
Eliza Gkritsi contributed to this report.



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