- UAE bans social media use for children below age 15 starting from next year
- Platforms must block or disable accounts of children under 15 within 12 months
- Non-compliant platforms face warnings, partial or full blocking, and penalties
The United Arab Emirates announced a social media ban for children below the age of 15 on Thursday. This is the latest nation to institute such a ban, following suit from Australia, Turkiye and Indonesia.
Social media platforms that fail to surveil and disable accounts made by children under the age of 15 will likely be blocked, according to a cabinet resolution.The platforms now have a transition period spanning 12 months to comply with the mandate.
"The resolution sets the minimum age for social media use at 15 years," the official WAM news agency stated, citing the cabinet resolution.
"Children below this age are prohibited from creating, using, or operating personal accounts on social media platforms," it said.
Children under the age of 15 are also forbidden from "accessing the full features of such platforms, including social interaction, publishing, commenting, sharing, joining public groups, open channels, or any large-scale interactive spaces."
Official authorities in the UAE that are in charge of media and telecommunications are authorised to "take all necessary measures (against social media platforms in the event of non-compliance" as per WAM.
This entails "warning or partial or full blocking of platforms or the imposition of applicable administrative penalties".
This development comes after several countries have implemented simiar bans on social media, starting with Australia in December 2025 who announced a fine of 49.5 million Australian dollars for platforms that failed to block Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X, YouTube, and Reddit accounts of children under the age of 16.
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Indonesia,Turkiye, and Malaysia followed suit from March to June 2026, announcing similar restrictions. Greece will be putting its social media ban for its denizens under 15 into practice on Jan. 1, 2027 onwards. France has passed a similar bill but is awaiting EU approval regarding alignment with its digital laws. The UK and Canada have bills mandating a similar ban for those under 16 in their early legislative stages, pending further approval.
(This is a developing story.)
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