Brussels has unveiled the EU Kids Act, a legislative package designed to shield minors from the darker corners of the digital world. The proposals include age restrictions, parental controls, and a crackdown on features deemed addictive in social media, video platforms, and AI chatbots. But as the bloc moves to rein in Big Tech, a more uncomfortable question is emerging: can Europe regulate its way to child safety without further ceding ground in the artificial intelligence race it is already losing?
The stakes are considerable. Europe counts just one significant AI company, Mistral, which is dwarfed by American rivals OpenAI and Anthropic in both valuation and investment. The continent has never managed to scale a digital platform to compete with Silicon Valley, relying instead on the strength of its single market and its regulatory leverage. Now, as AI becomes the defining technology of the decade, the trade-off between rules and growth is being framed as a make-or-break moment for the bloc.
What the Kids Act proposes
The legislation includes a blanket ban on social media for under-13s, while teenagers up to 15 would be allowed “mini accounts” — heavily supervised profiles linked to a parent’s account. These accounts would come with mandatory one-hour daily limits and a prohibition on features like infinite scroll, autoplay, and engagement rewards. The rules extend beyond social media to video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, online games like Roblox and Fortnite, and AI chatbots including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. App stores and operating systems would be required to integrate age-assurance filters to prevent underage downloads.
Stanislas Marchand, a former mobile gaming lead at French unicorn Voodoo, welcomes the ban for under-13s but argues it should have been extended to everyone under 16. He contends the Commission’s message should have been that these platforms are “unsuitable for children” because they are “engineered to maximise attention.” Marchand also warns that the implementation burden could be severe: platforms would need to verify ages, operate parent-controlled accounts, enforce daily limits, restrict contacts and features, and prove the resulting product is safe. “Every one of those responsibilities creates another potential point of failure,” he says, “and history gives us little reason to trust social media companies to execute them properly.”
That skepticism is rooted in a patchy enforcement record. Meta has been fined twice for illegally transferring European user data to US servers, breaching GDPR in 2023 and the Digital Markets Act in 2025. TikTok was fined €530 million last year for failing to protect children’s data and transferring it to Chinese servers. Elon Musk’s X, which has had the most acrimonious relationship with EU lawmakers, was fined €120 million in December over its deceptive “blue checkmark” verification and for denying researchers access to data. Google has accumulated €10.38 billion in antitrust fines. Yet these penalties are pocket change for the companies involved, and the arrival of even larger AI players like OpenAI and Anthropic could make enforcement even harder.
Marchand fears the Kids Act could make the EU a less attractive market for launching new products, while doing little to support European alternatives. “If the Kids Act requires separate European products and costly ongoing assessments, US labs may delay launches here while smaller European developers struggle to compete,” he warns. Frontier AI companies already face enormous computing costs and uncertain profitability, and additional regulatory hurdles could tip the balance further against European startups.
The pressure for EU-wide action is mounting. Australia implemented the world’s first social media ban for under-16s in December last year, a move that prompted governments worldwide to consider similar measures. France, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands have all been exploring national legislation, piling pressure on Brussels to present a unified approach and avoid fragmentation. In the US, social media companies have faced landmark liability cases, with Meta recently settling a $17 billion (€14.9 billion) lawsuit brought by 47 states.
For Europe, the challenge is to balance child protection with economic competitiveness. The continent’s digital sector is dominated by American firms, and its own champions remain scarce. As the EU prepares to enforce the Kids Act, it must also consider how to nurture its homegrown AI capabilities. Marchand argues that Europe “must prepare for the potential consequences by investing more urgently than ever in its homegrown AI capabilities.” The alternative, he suggests, is a future where Silicon Valley sets the rules — and Europe merely follows.
