European nations are ratcheting up the stress on social media corporations, responding to a public outcry over youngster security fears however risking a backlash from america, dwelling to the likes of Fb and Elon Musk’s X.
Spain on Tuesday ordered prosecutors to examine Fb proprietor Meta, X and TikTok for allegedly spreading AI-generated youngster sexual pictures, after an analogous transfer in Britain.
Eire additionally opened a proper probe of X’s AI chatbot Grok over its processing of private knowledge and the manufacturing of dangerous sexualised pictures.
A rising listing of European nations (France, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Slovenia and the Czech Republic) has in latest weeks moved to comply with Australia in proposing a social media ban for adolescents, amid rising concern about dependancy, on-line abuse and falling college efficiency.
Germany and Britain are weighing related steps.
The nationwide actions replicate political urgency but in addition frustration with the European Union. Politicians, advisers and analysts say governments are performing alone as a result of they doubt Brussels will transfer rapidly or forcefully sufficient – though particular person states face the identical authorized, diplomatic and enforcement hurdles because the EU.
Underneath the EU’s Digital Companies Act (DSA), which took impact in 2024, main platforms face fines of as much as 6% of worldwide annual turnover in the event that they fail to curb unlawful or dangerous content material.
However imposing penalties is politically fraught. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs and sanctions if EU nations impose new tech taxes or implement the DSA in ways in which hit U.S. companies.
The European Fee dismisses recommendations that it’s comfortable on U.S. Large Tech, pointing out in a web based assertion on Tuesday that it has opened a number of investigations together with in opposition to X and its deployment of Grok.
“Via measures just like the DSA, the EU is shaping Europe’s digital future. It’s supporting, funding and regulating new applied sciences with a objective to strengthen democracy,” it mentioned.
The rhetoric has at instances boiled over.
French President Emmanuel Macron final yr referred to as U.S. resistance to European regulation a “geopolitical battle”.
Trump’s administration warned in December that Europe confronted “civilizational erasure” and urged the U.S. to foster “resistance to Europe’s present trajectory”.
Spain’s Shopper Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy advised Le Grand Continent newspaper on Tuesday that his nation’s crackdown aimed to “break away from digital dependence on america”, including that some platforms have been getting used to “destabilise European democracies from inside”.
A modification of the DSA’s tips on July 14 permitting nationwide age restriction legal guidelines prompted Denmark to maneuver independently, its digitalisation ministry advised Reuters.
Spain had been weighing motion for months, however the last set off for proposing a ban for under-16s, and a legislation making social media CEOs accountable for hate speech, was Grok’s era of non-consensual sexual pictures of minors, Youth and Youngsters Minister Sira Rego mentioned.
For Macron, who has blamed social media for fuelling violence amongst younger individuals, the turning level was the deadly stabbing of a faculty aide by a 14-year-old scholar in June. He mentioned he would push for an EU-wide ban on adolescent use or, if obligatory, act unilaterally in France.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis mentioned studying Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Era,” which argues that smartphones and social media are “rewiring” youngsters’s brains, was “an eye-opening expertise”.
“We’re working the largest unchecked experiment with our youngsters’s brains ever,” he mentioned.
Revealed – February 18, 2026 11:22 am IST