The EU 'Kids Act' law, recently unveiled, aims to protect children from online harms by introducing age restrictions and parental control tools. This law also examines addictive features in social media, video platforms, and artificial intelligence.
Impacts and Challenges of the New Law
However, a serious question arises: Can Europe guarantee the safety of children by implementing these regulations without sidelining itself from the competition in artificial intelligence, where it is clearly lagging? The only major European company in this field, Mistral, is significantly smaller than its American competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. While artificial intelligence is considered the defining technology of this decade, the trade-off between 'rules' and 'growth' has become a major challenge for the Union.
Content of the 'Kids Act' Law
This law includes various measures to protect children in the digital space. Among them, individuals under 13 are completely banned from using social media, and teenagers up to 15 can only have small accounts under parental supervision. Additionally, a limit of one hour of daily use for these accounts and a complete ban on addictive features such as endless scrolling and interaction-based rewards are considered.
This law also encompasses all video-sharing platforms, online games, and artificial intelligence bots, and requires app stores and operating systems to create stringent filters for verifying users' ages. However, the main challenge here is how to enforce these laws, as the EU demands age verification and strict limitations to protect children.
Concerns exist about the effectiveness of these laws, especially since the digital sector in Europe is largely dominated by American companies, and historical precedent shows that these companies often struggle to comply with regulations. The numerous fines imposed on tech giants for violating laws reflect the reality that effective enforcement of regulations remains a serious challenge for the EU.
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