Greece is forging ahead with one of the strictest youth-protection measures in the digital era: a complete ban on social-media access for children under 15, set to take effect on January 1, 2027.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the decision Wednesday in a video posted directly on TikTok, addressing the very audience it will affect. “We have decided to go ahead with a difficult but necessary measure: ban access to social media for children under 15 years old,” he said, framing the policy as a defense of childhood rather than a rejection of technology.
“Greece is among the first countries in the world to adopt such a measure,” Mitsotakis added, pledging to press the European Union to follow suit. In a formal letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he called for a continent-wide “unified European framework” to be ready by the end of 2026 and proposed a new “Digital Age of Majority” at 15.
Under the Greek plan, social-media platforms would be required to conduct age verification at sign-up and repeat it every two years to block work-arounds.
The prime minister spoke candidly to the teenagers and children watching: “I know that some of you are going to be angry…. Our aim is not to keep you away from technology but to combat addiction to certain applications that harms your innocence and your freedom.” Citing scientific consensus, he warned, “when a child is in front of screens for hours, their brain does not rest.”
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis later clarified the scope. The ban will apply to platforms built around “endless scrolling” — specifically Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. Messaging and video services such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber and YouTube are exempt. The list will be kept “dynamic,” Marinakis said, so newly emerging apps with similar addictive designs can be added swiftly.
Platforms themselves will bear the legal duty to verify users’ ages; the government’s explicit goal, he stressed, is “not to place the burden of responsibility on children, but to pressure the platforms to adopt more effective policies.”
The announcement lands amid a mounting global reckoning over social media’s toll on adolescent mental health. A growing body of research links prolonged exposure — particularly the dopamine-driven scroll — to disrupted sleep, heightened anxiety, depression and diminished attention spans. Greek officials say the policy is a direct response to that evidence.
Greece is not acting alone. Australia became the first country to legislate a ban last December, requiring TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and other major sites to remove accounts of users under 16 or face steep fines. Yet three months after the law took effect, the country’s online-safety regulator reported that a “substantial proportion” of Australian children were still accessing the banned platforms. Indonesia began enforcing a similar under-16 prohibition in March and has already sent formal summonses to Google and Meta for alleged non-compliance.
Last month Austria signaled it would soon bar children up to 14, with draft legislation expected this summer. Spain and Denmark have also declared their intention to establish a digital age of majority for social networks.
Mitsotakis’s government hopes its two-year lead time and mandatory biannual re-verification will avoid the enforcement pitfalls already visible elsewhere. Critics, however, are already questioning whether age-verification technology can be both effective and privacy-preserving, and whether determined adolescents — or their parents — will simply find ways around the rules.
For now, the measure reflects a growing political consensus that the unchecked power of the world’s largest social platforms has outrun parental control and national borders.
By choosing TikTok as his announcement channel, Mitsotakis delivered a pointed message: the adults in charge are no longer willing to let the algorithms write the rules of childhood. Whether Europe — and the platforms — will listen remains to be seen.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Greece will ban children under 15 from accessing addictive social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat) starting January 1, 2027, making it one of the world’s earliest and strictest national measures.
This is not about rejecting technology, but protecting children’s developing brains from endless-scroll addiction, as science shows prolonged screen time prevents proper rest. Platforms will be forced to verify ages, with Greece pushing the EU to adopt a unified “Digital Age of Majority” at 15.
