{"id":14509,"date":"2026-04-13T20:30:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/13\/social-media-ban-raises-effectiveness-rights-concerns\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T20:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:30:34","slug":"social-media-ban-raises-effectiveness-rights-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/13\/social-media-ban-raises-effectiveness-rights-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media ban raises effectiveness, rights concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemscope=\"\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n                                                                    <picture><source media=\"(max-width: 767px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/phone_social_media_reuters-320x200.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"600\" class=\"picture-main-block-image\" data-nxsrc=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/phone_social_media_reuters.jpg\" alt=\"Social media ban raises effectiveness, rights concerns\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/phone_social_media_reuters-960x600.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n                        <\/source><\/picture>\n<p>Greece is preparing to ban under-15s from social media. [Louisa Gouliamaki\/Reuters]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>A landmark ban on social media for minors under 15 announced Wednesday by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has drawn criticism from experts who question its practical effectiveness, legal proportionality and impact on civil liberties.<\/p>\n<p>While the measure enjoys 80% public approval, critics point to recent data from Australia, where a similar ban implemented in late 2025 saw nearly 70% of minors bypass restrictions via VPNs. To address these enforcement gaps, Greece will debut a \u201cKids Wallet\u201d for digital age verification.<\/p>\n<p>However, Yannis Theocharis, a professor at the Technical University of Munich, warns that horizontal bans may inadvertently drive children toward unregulated \u201cdark\u201d platforms like 4chan, where extremism is common.<\/p>\n<p>Further complicating the policy, Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Michael O\u2019Flaherty cautions that universal bans are \u201cneither proportionate nor necessary,\u201d arguing that internet access is a fundamental right.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n        var NXFBPixelFunc = function () {\n            document.removeEventListener(\"scroll\", NXFBPixelFunc);\n            setTimeout(function () {\n                !function (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n                    if (f.fbq) return;\n                    n = f.fbq = function () {\n                        n.callMethod ?\n                            n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)\n                    };\n                    if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n                    n.push = n;\n                    n.loaded = !0;\n                    n.version = '2.0';\n                    n.queue = [];\n                    t = b.createElement(e);\n                    t.async = !0;\n                    t.src = v;\n                    s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)\n                }(window, document, 'script',\n                    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n                fbq('init', '109138906120213');\n                fbq('track', 'PageView');\n            }, 0)\n        };\n        document.addEventListener(\"scroll\", NXFBPixelFunc);\n    <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/in-depth\/society-in-depth\/1300636\/social-media-ban-raises-effectiveness-rights-concerns\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greece is preparing to ban under-15s from social media. [Louisa Gouliamaki\/Reuters] A landmark ban on social media for minors under 15 announced Wednesday by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has drawn criticism from experts who question its practical effectiveness, legal proportionality and impact on civil liberties. While the measure enjoys 80% public approval, critics point to &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Social media ban raises effectiveness, rights concerns\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/13\/social-media-ban-raises-effectiveness-rights-concerns\/#more-14509\" aria-label=\"Read more about Social media ban raises effectiveness, rights concerns\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/phone_social_media_reuters-960x600.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}