Norway is moving ahead swiftly in the debate over children's use of social media as it develops a plan for a strict minimum age of 15, the country's digital minister has said. Australia is the poster child for banning social media, but Norway is now a European pioneer. Karianne Oldernes Tung spoke to MLex about the thinking behind the proposal, the challenges of age-verification measures that will be needed, and why Europe must coordinate its approach.
Norway's plans to introduce a minimum age limit for social media by next summer attracted headlines in 2024. But with a draft law in the works and results of public feedback now being analyzed, much work will be needed to make it feasible. Key factors will be the creation of a robust age-verification system and stronger cooperation across Europe, the country's minister of digitalization and public governance told MLex.
In an exclusive interview, Karianne Oldernes Tung discussed Norway's active role in the growing debate over social media use among children, but stressed a need for collective action.
“It is important that all European countries are engaged in developing age-verification systems, so that we can implement this across the continent. Norway is a small country, so we can’t necessarily do this alone,” Tung said.
Although Norway isn’t a member of the EU, it is part of the European Economic Area, which means it adopts most EU laws linked to the single market. The country already applies the General Data Protection Regulation and is now implementing the EU’s Digital Services Act, the bloc's high-profile content-moderation law.
“We see that it’s not enough,” Tung said, adding that the GDPR already sets a minimum age limit of 13, but that the rule isn’t adequately enforced, as children as young as nine are on social media.
That’s why Norway's government, led by the center-left Labour Party, has proposed a new law, besides implementing the DSA and the existing GDPR, with an absolute age limit for social media and a clear definition of what constitutes social media.
It also wants to raise the GDPR's minimum age for processing of children's data from 13 years old to 15 — something that each EU member state can decide on its own.
The government is currently analyzing feedback from a public consultation that drew more than 8,000 submissions. "People in Norway are very engaged in this," Tung said.
Protecting children from online harms is climbing the political agenda around the world. Australia is in the vanguard — a social media ban for under-16s will take effect there on Dec. 10 — while EU countries such as France, Denmark and Greece are also developing national laws.
At the same time, the EU is facing growing pressure to deliver a bloc-wide solution (see here and here). Most recently, influential lawmaker Christel Schaldemose highlighted a European Parliament report calling for an EU-wide age limit of 16, unless a parent or guardian authorizes the use (see here).
Tung attended a meeting of digital ministers in Denmark earlier this month, where she raised Norway's ambitions with counterparts in the EU (see here).
In her view, developing an effective age-verification system is the key area for international cooperation. Verifying a user’s age can be done in several ways, including ID checks, facial age estimation, or behavior-based assessment tools that infer age from online activity patterns. But some experts say the technology for that isn’t yet ready.
“If we're not able to agree on setting the [minimum] at 15, for instance, we should at least agree on having an age-verification system that enables everyone to set their own national limits,” Tung said, adding that tech companies “have the smartest brains on board, they have the most money on board.”
The Norwegian minister said she's optimistic about finding a common European pathway, pointing to earlier success in reaching agreement on the DSA. “I think we're on the path to agree on verification systems, and then hopefully we also will agree on setting a common age or minimum age limit as well.”
For Norway, setting the age limit at 15 has been both a political and evidence-based decision, Tung said. The choice aligns with other national legal thresholds, such as the age of criminal responsibility, the right to choose one’s education, join a religious community and enter into a work contract.
— Who is included? —
When it comes to regulating social media, there is a need to define which platforms and apps are considered social media, and which aren’t.
That’s why the Norwegian government wants to define social media in the proposed law: “It's hard work,” Tung said, stressing that the definition would need to be futureproofed to work in an area of constant developments.
“We might have to change the definition. But I really believe in starting this hard work protecting children better, and then we have to make sure that we are making it more and more perfect the more we know about it.”
The definition in the draft law, still open to change after a public consultation currently under way, says that social media services are defined “as information society services which let users create a profile and connect with other user profiles.” Moreover, these services must store and disseminate content uploaded by users without editorial oversight to the public.
There will also be specific exemptions in the law, for example for computer games, platforms that are used for buying and selling services or products, or platforms with closed groups being used for educational purposes or spare time. “In Norway, for instance, we have a very popular app called Spond,” which will be exempted, Tung said. Spond is mostly used to coordinate sports activities.
Defining which platforms fall within the scope of a ban has proved to be universally challenging. In Australia, for instance, regulators have faced similar difficulties, with platforms such as YouTube and Snapchat arguing that they should be excluded from the proposed restrictions (see here and here).
— Open questions —
Tung said concerns voiced by child safety groups — that a social-media ban could adversely affect marginalized groups by limiting channels for connection — resonate with her. To deal with the “digital divide within Europe and Norway,” she said, it’s important to work together, such as by sharing common solutions.
"Social media is a positive thing ... because it enables children, adults, citizens to connect." But governments must strike a balance between protecting children and citizens and recognizing the democratic and inclusive value that social media can offer, Tung said.
Another big concern is around age verification and how data protection can be safeguarded. Any system capable of verifying users’ ages would likely involve processing sensitive personal or biometric information, raising questions about privacy, transparency and oversight.
Tung said this issue is at the top of her list. “It has to be our number-one job to protect privacy, human rights, transparency and non-discrimination,” while coming up with age-verification models to enforce the social-media ban, she said.
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