Greece bans social media for under-15s from 1 January, joining Australia, Türkiye and France

Greece has banned social media for children under 15. Parliament passed the law on Friday after a debate that ran from Thursday into the night, and it takes effect on 1 January, AFP reported in a story carried by Dawn. Social networks will have to verify the age of their users, and companies that fail to comply face what the government called harsh penalties.

How the vote went

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the plan in April and explained it to young people on TikTok, calling it "difficult but necessary". His conservative New Democracy party passed the bill on its own majority; no other party backed it, according to the Greek news agency ANA.

• Pasok (socialists): abstained. It had proposed a softer law banning social media for under-13s and adding parental controls for 13 and 14-year-olds.
• Left-wing and nationalist parties: voted against.

Greece joins a growing list

More than 20 countries have now passed similar laws, according to an AFP tally. Supporters say social networks use addictive algorithms to keep children scrolling and harm their mental health. Free-speech groups object to blanket bans, and sceptics doubt that age checks can be made to work.

What it means for families in Pakistan

Most big platforms set 13 as the minimum age in their own terms, and for parents in Pakistan the apps' own controls are the main tool:

1. Use the family settings built into the apps: TikTok's Family Pairing, Instagram's supervision tools and YouTube's supervised accounts let a parent link their account to a child's and set time limits.
2. Check the age your child entered when signing up: the apps apply their teen settings only to accounts registered with a teen's birth date.
3. Watch the data bill too: heavy video scrolling burns through mobile data fast. Our mobile load tax calculator shows how much of each top-up goes in tax.