- Greece will ban social media access for children under 15, announced by PM Mitsotakis
- Mobile phones banned in schools and parental controls set to limit teen screen time
- Calls to child cyberbullying helpline more than doubled from 2024 to 2025 in Greece
Greece is set to become the latest country to draw a hard line between children and social media, with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expected to formally announce a ban on social media access for children under the age of 15 on Wednesday. The announcement, expected at a government briefing, would prohibit children below 15 from accessing social media platforms, placing Greece at the forefront of an accelerating European effort to shield young users from the psychological harms of the internet.
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The move has been building for months. Mitsotakis had signalled his intentions as early as March, saying at a Bloomberg event in Athens that "the evidence is unambiguous" and that "addictive scrolling is damaging to their mental health." His government had already taken preliminary steps: mobile phones have been banned in schools, and parental control platforms have been set up to limit teenagers' screen time.
The scale of the problem in Greece has alarmed child welfare experts. As per Reuters, calls to a helpline supporting child victims of cyberbullying more than doubled between 2024 and 2025, according to George Kormas, who runs the EU-funded Greek Safer Internet Centre in Athens.
Other complaints include blackmail of minors, misinformation, and hate speech. The data paints a troubling picture: 75% of children using social media in Greece are of primary school age. Meanwhile, roughly 48% of teenagers report feeling the negative effects of social media, according to the head of Greece's national addiction prevention body, the report added.
Public sentiment is firmly behind the crackdown. An ALCO opinion poll published in February showed that around 80% of those surveyed approved of a ban. Parents, in particular, say they are overwhelmed.
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Technically, the Greek approach will differ from Australia's outright platform ban. Greece's plan shifts control to the device level, filtering, monitoring, and blocking social media platforms through the government's Kids Wallet application, which stores minors' identities for age verification. Austria, France, Spain, Poland, and Slovenia are also advancing similar age restrictions, while the European Parliament has backed a non-binding call for a minimum age of 16.
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