On Wednesday 15 October, Renew Europe published its position paper on the protection of minors online, calling for concrete action from the Commission to combat the addictive designs of social networks (see EUROPE 13728/1).
In 15 points, the centrist group in the European Parliament details a series of measures to be implemented, ranging from fairly broad principles – strengthening children’s literacy –, to legislative incentives – ensuring that future legislation on digital fairness (Digital Fairness Act) effectively close legal gaps.
The group calls on the Commission to deploy its full legislative arsenal – including the Digital Services Act (DSA), the GDPR and the AI Act – to reduce the harmful impact of social networks on young people’s mental health (see EUROPE 13730/7).
The group fully accepts this desire to put pressure on the Commission. According to Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (French), the EU already has a range of tools that should now be “used to their full potential”. “Europe has the necessary tools, but it still lacks the urgency to act”, echoes her colleague Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová (Slovakian).
However, the issue of the Digital Fairness Act and the potential gaps that this legislative text would fill remains unresolved. The Commission continues to focus on the scope and power of the DSA, which could, when the first investigations are concluded, address one or most of the concerns raised by MEPs (see EUROPE 13645/12).
See Renew Europe’s position paper: https://aeur.eu/f/izs (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)