The EU Child Protection Law, recently introduced, includes measures to limit children's access to big technologies and parental controls. This law aims to protect children from the dangers of the online space, addressing age restrictions, parental controls, and banning addictive features on social media and AI platforms.
Competitive Challenges in AI
However, a bigger question arises: Can Europe focus on child protection without withdrawing from the AI competitions in which it has currently lost? Europe has only one significant company in the field of AI, Mistral, which competes against American rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic. It seems that this continent is lagging significantly behind the United States in the digital arena.
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While the EU is making significant efforts to regulate technology laws, some experts, including Stanislas Marchand, former head of mobile games at the French company Voodoo, warn that these measures may have serious consequences for Europe's digital sector. He believes that Europe needs to quickly invest in its internal AI capabilities.
New Regulations and Their Impact on the Market
The new law includes a complete ban on social media use for individuals under 13 years old and the creation of limited accounts for teenagers up to 15 years old. These accounts will come with daily limits of one hour and a ban on addictive features such as endless scrolling and engagement rewards. Marchand also emphasizes that the main message should be that these platforms are not suitable for children due to their design to attract attention.
In addition to social media, this law includes video-sharing platforms like YouTube and Twitch, online games such as Roblox and Fortnite, as well as AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude. The law also requires app stores and operating systems to implement strict age filters to prevent users under a specified age from downloading restricted applications.
However, the main challenge in implementing this law lies ahead. The EU has asked platforms to verify children's ages, set up parental-controlled accounts, and enforce daily limits. These requirements could increase the costs and complexities of launching a product in Europe while simultaneously harming the market's attractiveness for new products.
Ultimately, given that the digital sector in Europe is heavily dominated by American companies, enforcing these laws may pose challenges for European startups and small companies. Marchand is concerned that the new law may make the European market unsuitable for new products while failing to support European options.
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