EU targets TikTok, Meta, X in child safety crackdown

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Tuesday in Copenhagen that the European Union is developing comprehensive regulations to rein in social media platforms and protect children and youth from harmful practices, specifically targeting TikTok, X, and Meta's Instagram and Facebook. Von der Leyen told delegates at an AI and children summit that the damages caused to young people by social media are not accidental but rather the deliberate result of business models that treat children's attention as a commodity. The Commission has already launched proceedings against X for its Grok artificial intelligence tool's alleged role in generating sexual images of women and children. The EU is exploring the possibility of implementing age-based restrictions on social media access, with von der Leyen stating that a legal proposal could be presented by summer following an expert panel report due in July. France, Denmark, and nine other member states are already pursuing national bans on social media for teenagers under certain ages, while the EU is studying Australia's decision to raise its minimum age for social media use to 16. Von der Leyen defended the Digital Services Act, the bloc's platform law under which investigations have been launched, asserting that the EU would forge ahead despite criticism from the United States administration under President Donald Trump. The Commission president also pointed to a recently released EU age-verification app as a tool to help enforce age restrictions, though the app has faced security criticism.