More Than 20 Countries Move to Restrict Children's Social Media Access
A coordinated but legally varied global push against minors on social platforms is creating a new patchwork of national digital age regulations with no unified international standard.
More than 20 countries have now taken legislative or regulatory steps to block or restrict children from accessing social media platforms, according to an AFP tally cited by Vanguard News. The AFP count, published September 16, 2026, marks a measurable acceleration in government-level action on child online safety compared to prior years.
The countries moving toward restrictions span multiple regions and income levels, though the AFP report does not name all 20 in the excerpt available. The approaches vary: some governments are pursuing outright bans on minors holding social media accounts, while others are implementing age-verification requirements or limiting platform features available to users below a specified age threshold.
Australia is among the most prominent examples. The Australian government passed its Online Safety Amendment Act in late 2024, setting a minimum age of 16 for social media use and placing the compliance burden on platforms rather than parents or children, according to reporting by Reuters at the time of passage. Australia's law has since been cited repeatedly by policymakers in other countries as a legislative reference point.
The United Kingdom has enforced its Age Appropriate Design Code, also known as the Children's Code, since 2021 under the Information Commissioner's Office. The code requires online services likely to be accessed by children to apply high privacy settings by default and restrict data profiling. Separate Online Safety Act provisions enacted in 2023 added further obligations on platforms to protect minors from harmful content, according to the UK government's official guidance.
France passed a law in 2023 requiring parental consent for children under 15 to create social media accounts and mandating that platforms verify ages, according to the French Senate's published record of the legislation. The law placed enforcement responsibility on platforms and set financial penalties for non-compliance.
Norway announced in early 2025 that it would raise the minimum age for social media from 13 to 15, according to reporting by the BBC. The Norwegian government stated the change was intended to reduce pressure on children from platform-driven engagement mechanics.
The variation in legal approaches is significant. Age verification methods differ widely, from government ID checks to third-party verification services to parental attestation systems. Critics of stricter verification measures, including digital rights organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have argued in published statements that mandatory ID-based age checks create data security risks and can suppress legal speech by adults who are unwilling to submit identification.
Platform responses have also varied. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced in 2024 that it would apply default teen accounts with restricted settings to users under 18 in the United States and parts of Europe, according to the company's official newsroom release. TikTok has implemented screen time limits and content restrictions for users who self-report as minors, though critics including the US Senate Commerce Committee have questioned the reliability of self-reporting as an enforcement mechanism.
The question of what constitutes effective enforcement remains open across most jurisdictions. In several countries, including those that have passed laws, regulatory agencies have not yet published enforcement actions against major platforms. What would clarify the practical effect of these laws is a documented record of penalties collected and accounts deactivated, which has not yet been compiled in any public cross-national study available as of this publication date.
The broader policy context involves ongoing debate about the relationship between adolescent social media use and mental health outcomes. A 2023 advisory from the US Surgeon General's office stated there was sufficient evidence to warrant concern about the effects of social media on youth mental health, though it stopped short of recommending a ban and called for more research. The advisory is a public document available on the Department of Health and Human Services website.
With more than 20 governments now in various stages of restriction, the next measurable indicators will be whether enforcement produces verifiable reductions in minor account registrations and whether platforms face financial penalties sufficient to alter their operational practices at scale.