Social media age restrictions back on the table in the Netherlands

The new minority government in the Netherlands has reintroduced the possibility of putting age restrictions on social media. While plans remain vague, the move marks a turnaround from the previous government, which said the responsibility to keep kids safe online should largely be on parents – a de facto rejection of biometric age assurance technology.

However, a report from NL Times says a statement from the three Dutch parties supporting the proposal does indicate that enforcement of the age limit must be done with “privacy-friendly age verification for young people, as long as social media remains insufficiently secure.”

Although the language differs, this suggests alignment with other EU countries and the UK in requiring the kind of highly effective, privacy preserving age assurance tools offered by many in the biometrics industry.  Dutch officials had called for social media platforms to be restricted to those 15 and older prior to the previous government’s call for parents to lead on restrictions. The new requirements would apply to large online platforms, with “obligations to be transparent about algorithms and revenue, and with effective moderation of illegal content.”

The proposal would ban “addictive, polarizing, and anti-democratic algorithms” and require “punishable” content to be removed within an hour of a regulator’s order.

Opposition to age checks starting to sound feeble in light of data 

The coverage indulges the usual play at giving voice to both sides of the debate. It quotes Vivian den Blanken, an expert in media education at the Netherlands Youth Institute, who expresses the same concerns often heard in similar debates taking place around the world: social media bans take the internet away from kids.

“We want to protect children from harmful effects and disturbing images,” she says. “But instead of addressing those, we’re taking something away from them, and thus also the benefits of being online.”

This brings up the increasingly relevant question of how to quantify benefits and harms in order to weigh which is greater. Early cigarette marketing leaned on the idea that smoking could ease social anxiety and help people connect.

Others call on the government to consult with young people who will be affected by the ban, noting that many youth are themselves in favor of limits on social platforms; the report quotes a  study by Newcom which found support for banning children from social media growing fastest among those between the ages of 16 and 28.

Some argue for a phased approach, suggesting that sudden access at age 15 would lead to indulgent behavior – a repressed appetite for social media, let loose. Yet others repeat the claim that there is no reliable infrastructure to prove someone is 15 or older, which neglects mounting evidence from Australia and elsewhere that, given current testing and data, facial age estimation is on its way to becoming exactly that.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  EU age verification  |  Netherlands  |  social media