Last week the EU Commission’s Special Panel on Child Safety Online told Ursula von der Leyen that when it comes to protecting children online, “the burden of proof needs to be on providers, not regulators, parents and children”.
Three days earlier, the commission issued a preliminary finding that found the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook to be in breach of the EU’s Digital Services Act.
And according to a recent YouGov poll for Reset Tech, carried out across France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain, 75 percent of Europeans surveyed want platforms to prove their products are safe before children can use them at all.
It seems Europe is finally starting to get it right. There should be no more live-testing of dangerous social media products on kids.
For years, platforms have run the experiment and children have paid the price. That can change, but only if we establish a clear standard for platforms to meet: prove your product is safe before children can use it, or it comes off the market.
