Greece to Ban Social Media Access for Children Under 15 Starting 2027

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced Wednesday that Greece will ban children under 15 from accessing social media beginning January 1, 2027, delivering the news in a video posted on TikTok. The move places Greece alongside France, Spain, and Portugal in a tightening European consensus that national governments, not platforms, must set the terms of minors' digital lives.

"We have decided to go ahead with a difficult but necessary measure: ban access to social media for children under 15," Mitsotakis said, adding that Greece aims to pressure the European Union toward similar action EU-wide. The regulation is to be finalized by Greece's parliament in mid-2026, with age-verification and enforcement details expected to be published over the summer.

The policy carries considerable political weight at home. An ALCO opinion poll published in February showed roughly 80 percent of those surveyed approved of a ban, and the government has already taken prior steps: Greece has outlawed mobile phones in schools and set up parental control platforms to limit teenagers' screen time.

The enforcement architecture, however, is where the plan faces its hardest test. Under the new policy, minors will be prohibited from maintaining social media accounts regardless of parental consent, with enforcement relying on a state-mandated application installed on all personal devices. The specifics of how that application would function, what data it would collect, and how platforms like Meta, ByteDance's TikTok, and Snap would be required to comply remain unpublished. Critics are already pointing out that teenagers are likely to bypass restrictions through VPNs, other people's accounts, and technical loopholes, as has occurred in countries that have attempted to restrict the internet through administrative methods.

The mental-health rationale Mitsotakis cited, including anxiety, sleep disruption, and addictive platform design, reflects a growing political consensus, but the scientific record is less settled. Research on social media's effects on adolescents consistently identifies links to anxiety and depression, but findings remain inconsistent, with some reviews noting negative but nonsignificant correlations and others emphasizing that effects depend heavily on individual vulnerabilities, online contexts, and preexisting conditions. Policymakers are moving on the precautionary principle rather than waiting for definitive causal proof.

The EU dimension may prove as consequential as the domestic one. Mitsotakis wrote separately to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for coordinated EU action, proposing a bloc-wide "digital age of majority" at 15, mandatory age verification and regular re-verification for all platforms, and a harmonized enforcement and penalty framework to be in place by end of 2026. State Minister Akis Skertsos was direct about why national action alone falls short: "Unless we have an EU legislative framework...national legislation alone will be ineffective," he said.

The UK, Malaysia, France, Denmark, and Poland are either considering a ban or in the process of legislating one, while Australia became the first country in the world to ban social media for children under 16, blocking access to platforms including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook in December.

The U.S. approach remains fractured by comparison. A House subcommittee recently held hearings on 19 new federal digital media bills, including a revised Kids Online Safety Act, updates to children's privacy law, and a proposal that would prohibit platforms from allowing users under 16 to open or maintain social media accounts. None has become law. Greece's January 2027 deadline gives platforms, regulators, and civil libertarians roughly eight months to find out whether a state-mandated app on every personal device is a workable enforcement tool or an unenforceable declaration dressed as policy.