French children under 15 should be banned from social media and there should be an overnight “digital curfew” for 15-18 year olds, a parliamentary commission has recommended.
The six-month inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors has found that the short video-sharing platform “knowingly exposes our children, our young people to toxic, dangerous and addictive content”.
“We must force TikTok to rethink its model,” says the commission, which heard testimony from teenagers and the families of young victims.
TikTok responded saying it categorically rejected the commission’s “misleading characterisation of our platform” which sought to “scapegoat our company on industry-wide and societal challenges”.
“TikTok has an ongoing robust trust and safety programme with more than 70 features and settings designed specifically to support the safety and well-being of teens and families on our platform,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
The company’s measures have however failed to impress the French cross-party commission of inquiry, which describes TikTok as one of the worst social media platforms – “a production line of distress” for young people. It argues Tiktok it has failed to take sufficient action to reduce teenagers being exposed to “a spiral of harmful content”.
The recommendations of the French parliamentary inquiry come hard on the heels of an Australian social media ban for children under the age of 16 which comes into force on 10 December. “Age‐restricted social media platforms” such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube will face steep fines if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to bar under-16s from holding accounts.
The French inquiry was originally set up after a group of families accused TikTok of exposing their children to content that could lead them to taking their own lives. It heard testimony from children as well as parents.
“The content she watched was deadly… prioritising songs that advocate suicide as a liberation,” said one mother whose daughter had taken her life in 2021.
Another woman named Martine said she had seen her daughter Lilou, who took her life aged 14, watching videos of people talking about depression and worse.
“At no point was she exposed to content that could have inspired her to live,” Martine told FranceInfo. “She was deluged with videos that suggested death as a solution.”
Among the 43 recommendations of the French inquiry team aimed at getting French children “out of the TikTok trap” are:
- a ban on social media for under-15s
- no use of the apps overnight from 22:00-08:00 to prevent overnight scrolling
- a ban on mobile phones in school
- and, in the coming years, a crime of digital negligence for parents who fail to protect their children.
Lead inquiry author Laure Miller explained that the idea of an offence for parents of digital negligence was really just an extension of existing law.
“If a six-year-old child spends seven hours a day in front of TikTok, we can ask ourselves the question: ‘are their safety and morality really protected by their parents?’,” she told reporters.
France is among several EU countries pushing to limit children’s use of social media. Denmark is also considering a social media ban for under-15s and Spain’s government has sent to parliament a draft law for under-16s to require their legal guardians to authorise access.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday she was watching the implementation of the Australian law closely and would commission a panel of experts to report back by the end of 2025 on the “best approach for Europe”.
Responding to the French inquiry’s recommendations, TikTok said it had already introduced a 60-minute screen limit for under-18s and also nudged under-16s to switch off their app after 22:00.
The chairman of the inquiry, Arthur Delaporte, said he had decided to refer allegations that TikTok had deliberately “endangered the lives” of its users to the Paris public prosecutor, and it was up to the prosecutor to decide on the next step.
Delaporte has also been asked to look into the death of French influencer Jean Pormanove which was streamed live last month on the platform Kick.
The National Assembly is considering how to regulate the digital sector and the way content is monetised.