{"id":1876465,"date":"2026-04-10T19:46:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1876465"},"modified":"2026-04-10T19:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:46:20","slug":"estonia-is-the-rare-eu-country-opposing-child-social-media-bans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1876465","title":{"rendered":"Estonia is the rare EU country opposing child social media bans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/Q6TXacNfXVy.jU2iGuTpBA&#8211;\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MTQ-\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/2026-04\/54678acd-ac57-4599-a5f6-cbda2abc8483&#8243;]<\/p>\n<article id=\"article-f4727321-18ad-4012-b2cc-3da8f24c1c2b\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"mx-auto md:px-10 md:max-w-[1220px]\">\n<nav class=\"prestige-breadcrumb relative mx-4 md:mx-0\" aria-label=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<ol class=\"no-scrollbar overflow-scroll whitespace-nowrap text-battleship\">\n<li class=\"inline\">\n<li class=\"inline-block cursor-default last:pr-10 md:last:pr-20 font-bold\">Social media<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/nav>\n<header class=\"mb-4 px-4 md:mb-6 md:px-0\">\n<h1 class=\"layout-h1 my-2 font-bold leading-tight\">Estonia is the rare EU country opposing child social media bans<\/h1>\n<h2 class=\"my-2 text-[18px] font-light leading-5 md:max-w-[660px] md:text-[20px]\/[28px]\">The country&#8217;s education minister said the responsibility lies with governments and corporations, not the kids.<\/h2>\n<div class=\"flex-col items-start lg:flex lg:flex-row lg:items-center lg:justify-between mt-6\">\n<div class=\"relative md:mr-[10px]\">\n<div class=\"flex items-center\">\n<div class=\"flex mr-2\">\n<div class=\"shrink-0 cursor-pointer inline-block size-[42px] lg:size-[48px]\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt role=\"img\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full rounded-full object-cover object-center shadow-[0_0_0_2px_#ffffff]\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/HVLHsm6NoIRupYAscgAX1g--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTgwO2g9ODA-\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2025-07\/cd49bb30-6802-11f0-9fbf-d9d20eb98294\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"inline-block\">\n<div class=\"w-max text-sm\/5 font-semibold lg:!flex flex items-center\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col\">\n<div class=\"flex w-max items-center\">Will Shanklin<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"font-normal sm:before:inline-block\">Contributing Reporter<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"lg:hidden\">\n<div class=\"text-xs text-dolphin dark:text-shark md:text-sm\/5 pt-4\">\n<div class=\"inline-block\"><time datetime=\"2026-04-10T19:46:20.000Z\">Fri, April 10, 2026 at 7:46 PM UTC<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ml-0 mt-4 flex items-center lg:ml-3 lg:mt-0\">\n<div class=\"ml-0 mr-2\">\n<div class=\"relative flex\">Add Engadget on Google<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"hidden lg:block\">\n<div class=\"text-xs text-dolphin dark:text-shark md:text-sm\/5 pt-4\">\n<div class=\"inline-block\"><time datetime=\"2026-04-10T19:46:20.000Z\">Fri, April 10, 2026 at 7:46 PM UTC<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-1 gap-x-8 lg:gap-x-0 mx-auto md:px-10 md:max-w-[1220px] md:grid-cols-[[main-start]_1fr_[main-end_right-start]_min-content_[right-end]] lg:!gap-x-8\">\n<div class=\"md:col-main\" data-i13n-boundary=\"true\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-[[fullbleed-start_body-start]_minmax(auto,750px)_[body-end_fullbleed-end]]\">\n<figure class=\"relative col-body mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative overflow-hidden fig-image-round left-1\/2 w-screen -translate-x-1\/2 md:left-0 md:w-auto md:translate-x-0\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"object-cover object-center\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/RVys1H5cGGrtzTTVt6pEPw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyNDI7aD04NDM-\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/uu\/api\/res\/1.2\/we_GWUjL3eadG08ba65xeA--~B\/aD0zNTI3O3c9NTE5NzthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/2026-04\/54678acd-ac57-4599-a5f6-cbda2abc8483\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-[0.875rem]\/[1.25rem] figure-caption mt-1 line-clamp-2 mt-2.5 md:mt-2 pr-2.5\">\n<div><span class=\"[&amp;_p]:inline\">Estonian Minister of Education and Research, Kristina Kallas<\/span><span> (Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:grid-cols-article lg:max-w-[750px] drop-cap\" data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">As child social media bans spread across Europe and beyond, Estonia isn&#8217;t having it. On Friday, the country&#8217;s education minister said the bans won&#8217;t &#8220;actually solve problems,&#8221; while warning that the kids will find a way regardless.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Although companies like Meta would love for you to believe it\u2019s a fairy tale, social media addiction is associated with tangible negative repercussions for children. Studies show that its harms range from depression and anxiety to sleep deprivation and obesity. (The latter is from all the targeted junk food advertising.) On the other hand, teens can find community and support from social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">A growing list of countries looked at the negative data and concluded that the answer was to ban social media altogether for children. Although the age cutoff varies, legislation has been floated or enacted in Australia, Greece, France, Austria, Spain, Indonesia, Malaysia, the UK and Denmark \u2014 just to name a few.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_kd9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_14d9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Estonia&#8217;s education minister believes these countries are coming at the very real problem from the wrong angle. &#8220;The way to approach this, to me, is not to make kids responsible for that harm and start self-regulating,&#8221; Kristina Kallas said at a Politico forum in Barcelona. She added that &#8220;kids will find very quickly the ways to go around and to still use social media.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Instead, she said the responsibility lies with governments and corporations. &#8220;Europe pretends to be weak when it comes to big American and international corporations,&#8221; she added. But she called that a &#8220;pretense,&#8221; challenging the EU to &#8220;actually take this power and start regulating the big American corporations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">To be fair, the EU regulates the tech industry more effectively than anywhere else in the world. But the point on childhood social bans stands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Another argument against the bans is that it\u2019s a short path from the well-meaning to a more sinister erosion of basic freedoms. In February, France suggested that the next logical step after passing an under-15 social media ban would be to go after VPNs. After all, once you pass the ban, you need to enforce it \u2014 and that can mean snuffing out the tools children could use to work around it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"md:col-main grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:grid-cols-article lg:max-w-[750px]\">\n<div class=\"no-scrollbar col-body mx-4 mb-8 mt-2.5 overflow-x-scroll whitespace-nowrap md:mx-0 md:max-w-[750px] md:overflow-x-visible\">\n<div class=\"mx-auto max-w-screen-sm\">\n<ul class=\"inline-flex text-xs md:text-sm\">\n<li class=\"mr-6\">About our ads<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:grid-cols-article lg:max-w-[750px] drop-cap\" data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">As child social media bans spread across Europe and beyond, Estonia isn&#8217;t having it. On Friday, the country&#8217;s education minister said the bans won&#8217;t &#8220;actually solve problems,&#8221; while warning that the kids will find a way regardless.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Although companies like Meta would love for you to believe it\u2019s a fairy tale, social media addiction is associated with tangible negative repercussions for children. Studies show that its harms range from depression and anxiety to sleep deprivation and obesity. (The latter is from all the targeted junk food advertising.) On the other hand, teens can find community and support from social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">A growing list of countries looked at the negative data and concluded that the answer was to ban social media altogether for children. Although the age cutoff varies, legislation has been floated or enacted in Australia, Greece, France, Austria, Spain, Indonesia, Malaysia, the UK and Denmark \u2014 just to name a few.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_kd9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_14d9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Estonia&#8217;s education minister believes these countries are coming at the very real problem from the wrong angle. &#8220;The way to approach this, to me, is not to make kids responsible for that harm and start self-regulating,&#8221; Kristina Kallas said at a Politico forum in Barcelona. She added that &#8220;kids will find very quickly the ways to go around and to still use social media.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Instead, she said the responsibility lies with governments and corporations. &#8220;Europe pretends to be weak when it comes to big American and international corporations,&#8221; she added. But she called that a &#8220;pretense,&#8221; challenging the EU to &#8220;actually take this power and start regulating the big American corporations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">To be fair, the EU regulates the tech industry more effectively than anywhere else in the world. But the point on childhood social bans stands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Another argument against the bans is that it\u2019s a short path from the well-meaning to a more sinister erosion of basic freedoms. In February, France suggested that the next logical step after passing an under-15 social media ban would be to go after VPNs. After all, once you pass the ban, you need to enforce it \u2014 and that can mean snuffing out the tools children could use to work around it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/social-media\/estonia-is-the-rare-eu-country-opposing-child-social-media-bans-194620916.html&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/Q6TXacNfXVy.jU2iGuTpBA&#8211;\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MTQ-\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/2026-04\/54678acd-ac57-4599-a5f6-cbda2abc8483&#8243;] Social media Estonia is the rare EU country opposing child social media bans The country&#8217;s education minister said the responsibility lies with governments and corporations, not the kids. Will Shanklin Contributing Reporter Fri, April 10, 2026 at 7:46 PM UTC Add Engadget on Google Fri, April 10, 2026 at 7:46 PM UTC [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,63],"class_list":["post-1876465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-engadget-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1876465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1876465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1876465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1876465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}