Guardrails or Gag Order? The Paradox of Protecting Children Online

The modern Nanny State at work! It is the parents' right and duty to decide matters like this, not the state! And, Dr De Lauzun says, "the small concession of freedom granted for the greater good always paves the way for greater enslavement".

From The European Conservative

By Hélène De Lauzun, PhD

Social media is a scourge, and young people are suffering. But the small concession of freedom granted for the greater good always paves the way for greater enslavement.

France has just voted to ban social media for children under the age of 15. For several months, President Macron had made this one of his priorities. France already prides itself on being at the forefront of online protection for minors—with measures taken against access to pornographic sites, among other things—and a new milestone has been reached with the support of lawmakers from all sides for a law designed to protect children and adolescents from overexposure to social media. Should we rejoice?

The damage caused by the use of social media is now a fact that no one can ignore. Now, from the moment they enter middle school in the French system, at the age of eleven, the vast majority of a given age group have smartphones with virtually unlimited access to all the tools that such devices offer. Calls, messages, and photos, of course, but also web browsing and social media.

The consequences of this almost universal access to digital tools are dramatic. Children and teenagers are suffering from a colossal sleep deficit due to the amount of time they spend scrolling on their screens. The cognitive decline caused by the widespread use of smartphones and social media, which encourage scrolling and the proliferation of ultra-short content, is now proven and documented, with a whole host of damaging effects: loss of attention, memory difficulties in learning, and difficulty in developing structured reasoning with logical sequences. This is an unprecedented crisis of exceptional severity that will result—and is already resulting—in a dramatic civilisational regression, as our colleague Sebastian Morello has pointed out. Finally, frequent use of social media exposes emotionally fragile individuals to all kinds of harm: excessive dependence on the judgement of others, physical competition, harassment—which, in some tragic cases, can even lead to death.

In these circumstances, there is reason to welcome the ban on minors accessing social media until the age of 15, which was passed by the National Assembly on the night of January 26-27. President Macron welcomed this as a “major step forward” on X. Article 1 of the law stipulates that “access to an online social networking service provided by an online platform is prohibited to minors under the age of 15.” It excludes certain educational platforms from the ban, as well as “private interpersonal messaging services” such as WhatsApp.

The article was adopted by 116 votes to 23, with the support of the government camp, the Rassemblement National (RN) and its ally the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR), the communists, independents, and most of the Green MPs. The left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) voted against it, and the majority of socialists abstained.

This is a good thing, because any parent who has experienced it knows that access to social media destroys the brains, emotional development, and social skills of young adolescents who are unable to manage the constant flow of information bombarding them and to control the addictive mechanisms underlying the functioning of these networks: the constant search for interaction and gratification for any content posted or commented on.

But once the initial reaction has passed, rejoicing at the passing of the law is nothing more than taking its value for granted. Banning social media for minors under the age of 15 is a laudable intention, but the implementation of such a ban requires control mechanisms that are bound to affect adults as well—the opportunity is too good to pass up, and we know how obsessed our leaders are with digital identity and universal tracking. Through this provision with laudable intentions, the state has, in fact, found a new way to interfere a little more in our lives. The small concession of freedom granted for the greater good always paves the way for greater enslavement.

A few hours after the law was passed, the government confirmed that identity checks would apply to everyone, regardless of age, with the requirement to upload an identity document to a partner app.

On the Right, several voices have expressed concern about the passing of the law and its possible harmful side effects. Pierre Sautarel, editor-in-chief of the website fdesouche, laments the support given by the RN to the ban: Social media, he argues, has helped to give the party’s dissenting voice a platform, and now that it is on the verge of power, it is unreservedly lending itself to the game of censorship—which will inevitably backfire on it.

There is an intangible truth that tends to be relegated to oblivion: the primary educators of children are their parents, not the state. On paper, this is healthy and obvious, but the reality is infinitely more complex. When it comes to smartphones and social media, not all parents are lax and irresponsible. Many have been overwhelmed by tools they themselves do not understand or have become dependent on themselves, making it extremely difficult to regulate their children’s use. More and more parents are realising that they have made a huge mistake in putting a smartphone in their children’s hands. They want to backtrack and put the brakes on, but they feel terribly alone in doing so: social pressure from the group and the fear of coming across as an authoritarian father or a psychologically rigid mother paralyses many of them. Should we blame them? The authority they have enjoyed for centuries is no longer in their hands—because everything has been done to deprive them of it, starting with the state. As a result, they have no choice but to rely on authority from above, i.e., public authority. This is a deeply vicious circle—dare we say, totalitarian.

This public authority, which today gives the impression of raising its voice to protect children, has been playing a murky game from the outset. It is this same state that has done so much to ‘connect’ children and teenagers, sometimes starting as early as kindergarten. With the help of generous public subsidies, computers and tablets have been distributed and ‘digital schools’ have been launched so that children can get used to clicking before they know how to hold a pen—so that they can be ‘in tune with the world’ and at the cutting edge of progress. Slowly but surely, the bigwigs at the ministry of education are beginning to realise that this may not have been such a good idea after all. But the damage has been done, and it is already profound.

The second article of the law provided for a ban on cell phones in high schools—a ban that already exists for elementary and middle schools but which is very poorly enforced. The article was finally rewritten to limit phone use to certain controlled areas.

If the text is finally adopted, France would become the second country to introduce such restrictive legislation for minors, after Australia, which banned social media for under-16s at the beginning of December. The government wants to move quickly, with a ban on new accounts to be implemented at the start of the 2026 school year and effective age verification for all users, including existing accounts, by January 1, 2027.

Social media is a scourge, and young people are suffering. The ban on under-15s will be a crutch for all parents who no longer know how to say no; hopefully, some teenagers will be better protected. Freedom of expression will inevitably suffer. But it is important to remain clear-headed and look further ahead, because the truth lies elsewhere. In any case, social media, even without identity checks, is not a place to learn about true freedom. Everything there is already rigged, controlled, and monitored, and the power of algorithmic logic has long hindered any free approach to reality.

This is where the active role of parents becomes crucial. They have the difficult task of distancing themselves from digital tools and protecting their children from them from an early age—but also protecting themselves. Discernment and freedom are acquired through tools that never deceive or betray: classical education, reading, and the humanities. It is a narrow path, and few are called to follow it.