Cabinet wants social media made safe for children

The cabinet wants safe social media and other digital services for children, State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Aerdts told the Tweede Kamer. He was answering written questions from MP Van den Berg of JA21, asked on 17 September, about a future European social media ban for children.

Asked whether he considers protecting children on social media important, Aerdts answered: "Yes, I think that's very important." Children should be able to use a safe and healthy digital environment, he wrote. The cabinet is pursuing a government-wide online children's rights policy.

European rules such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) already oblige platforms, including social media and video platforms, to protect minors. The European Commission has now proposed the EU KIDS Act to protect children better online. The cabinet's assessment of the proposal (the BNC-fiche) went to parliament last Friday. The proposal covers the safe design of digital services such as social media.

The Netherlands and Spain have drawn up a non-paper on a minimum age for social media. It asks the Commission to encourage companies to develop and roll out safe services that suit children. Ursula von der Leyen's special panel on Child Safety Online likewise advises financing and promoting services based on European values and safe by design.

What counts as safe enough for children has yet to be worked out, the cabinet says. It names harmful algorithms and addictive design techniques as features that should be absent.

Asked how high safe alternative services rank among its priorities, the cabinet said it does not rank them: several measures are needed. The package is set out in the Strategiebrief Kinderrechten Online (children's rights online strategy letter), sent to parliament in early October.