Greek youths will find a way around it, of course, because the coming ban on those under 15 using social media platforms is rather like the United States trying to keep people from drinking alcohol from 1920-33, which spawned violence and profits.
It’s too late to keep kids off social media even though the technological phenomenon has produced addiction, brain rot scrolling (apps like Flipboard let you read some sites like real newspapers), and attention deficit disorder.
It’s also made real books (scrolling is not reading) almost an endangered species like the reference in Joni Mitchell’s song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ about trees: “They took all the trees, Put ’em in a tree museum. Then they charged the people a dollar-and-a-half just to see ’em.”
But kudos to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for announcing the ban for minors – he did it on a TikTok video to reach them – which saw Greece follow the lead of Australia, which was the first in December 2025 to pass a prohibition.
It will aim to stop access to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat as of Jan.1, 2027 for anyone born from 2012 on, the government said, with the legislation to be brought to Parliament this summer.
Only a few other countries are planning to do so as well, including Denmark, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Spain, Ireland, Austria, and possibly the United Kingdom, but not the United States despite Meta and YouTube being found liable in March in a landmark trial in America over a woman’s social media addiction.
Jurors found that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook, and What’sApp (which is susceptible to hacking) and Google – the parent company of YouTube, had intentionally built addictive social media platforms that harmed her mental health.
Meta and Google said they disagreed with the verdict and intended to appeal. Meta said: “Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app.” Yes, and smoking cigarettes doesn’t cause cancer either.
As long as Zuckerberg can make money – apparently being worth some $213 billion isn’t enough – he will fall in line with authoritarian leaders and the mantra of business to step over the dead and on the living.
He started with Facebook before it became Meta – a digital, virtual, and augmented reality-based environment which is about as mentally healthy as doomscrolling the rubbish on social media – and he doesn’t care about your children.
Mitsotakis wants the European Union to adopt a similar ban for its 27 member states but as long as ironmen like Hungary’s Viktor Orban are in power there won’t be the consensus needed to approve any legislation.
Mitsotakis said the EU should also standardize online age-verification tools, however there are so many ways to get around safeguards that there will be breaches, but at least in Greece some minors will be protected.
The New Democracy government said that the measure would affect the four main social media platforms “that keep you endlessly scrolling,” but no restrictions would be adopted for messaging and video platforms such as WhatsApp, Viber, Messenger, and Youtube.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said the list would be updated in the future if deemed necessary. Well, it’s necessary, so this half-measure doesn’t go far enough and no amount of spinning will change that.
“Children’s brains are still evolving,” he said. “And experts agree that the unchecked use of such platforms can lead to stress, depression, sleep loss … cyber bullying and social isolation.” So why not extend the ban to the other platforms?
Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou said the proposed framework would not force social media platforms to use their own mechanisms to verify users’ ages, instead relying on existing European verification systems.
You can’t unring a bell, though the ban will be partially effective for the target audience and technology that today hooks toddlers and results in the zombie stare at screens that sees kids standing next to each other texting, not talking.
There’s no hope of an outright ban working, but at least Greece is trying while Zuckerberg and his ilk, expanding their Rasputin-like influence, wouldn’t care if social media creates Walking Dead minors.
Mitsotakis said the move was aimed at tackling rising anxiety and sleep problems among minors, as well as what he described as the “addictive design” of social media, said the BBC.
Social media can be deadly. That should be put on the cover of every cell phone and computer like a warning to smokers, although it would be ignored because the pull and juice are too much for most to resist.
In Greece, 80 percent of the public backs the ban, especially parents who’ve lost control over their children who can’t stay off social media, There are reports of growing cyberbullying, blackmail, and harmful content targeting minors, with 75 percent of Greek social media users in primary school age.
In March 2022, George Nicolaou and his wife Areti found their son Christoforos dead in his bedroom in their home in Cheshunt, England after discovering he was subjected to 50 days of torment.
That was through an online network of teen boys making a game out of coercing victims. His parents said he killed himself. “We picked up his phone and at that moment a message came through that said, ‘are you dead?’” they said. Yes, he is, and so is the person who sent it.