An EU-wide ban requires a far more difficult balancing act among 27 countries. Von der Leyen brought up the issue at last year’s State of the European Union address, an annual tradition where she sets out the EU executive’s policy aims for the year. The four officials said they expect an announcement with next steps at this year’s speech in September, as von der Leyen continues to build support across the bloc.
“We’ve seen that already 14 member states are on board,” Poland’s Digital Affairs Minister Dariusz Standerski told POLITICO. “I believe that we have now a strong majority in favor of those solutions. We’ve heard from a couple of countries which are not really happy about those proposals — however, I do not see any possible blocking minority right now.”
Standerski said more than 70 percent of the public in Poland supports a social media ban for children and age verification in light of some of the content that young people are exposed to. “Children about six, seven years, those kids are seeing harmful content — child pornography, bullying and other crimes on the internet,” he said.
Most of the public opposition is coming from a handful of more digital-savvy nations that insist there are smarter ways to protect children than a blanket ban.
Von der Leyen will make a short statement Monday and publicly accept the experts’ findings. One official who has seen the report told POLITICO that it will contain concrete recommendations about how to limit the harm done by social media but won’t go as far as to tell politicians what specifically should be banned.
Another official briefed on the contents said the report will not give a yes-or-no answer on whether age restrictions are a good idea. It will, however, leave the door open to such a measure, they said, as well as on at what ages limits should be set.