The European Commission president backed age restrictions across the bloc after an expert panel recommended a staged approach to children's internet access, including blocking "social media plus" for under-13s, according to The Guardian. Von der Leyen confirmed a draft law is coming in autumn 2026 but stopped short of locking in a final minimum age.

The real fight starts in autumn when Brussels drafts the rules. The headline age matters less than enforcement: whether the EU demands genuine age checks, how it treats messaging and games with social features, and which regulator punishes platforms that ignore their youngest users.

Europe spent years regulating what platforms do with adult data and competition. Now it's moving toward regulating whether platforms get access to children at all. That's a bigger shift than the ban headline suggests. Once governments decide recommendation feeds and engagement loops are a child-safety issue, the debate moves from content moderation to product design. Silicon Valley loses the easy excuse that parents should handle it alone.