Estonia: Opposing Bans on Children’s Social Media Use
In short:
Estonia and Belgium are the only two EU member states to have declined the Jutland Declaration, an October 2025 pan-European commitment to restrict children’s access to social media. Estonia’s ministers argue that age-based bans are enforceable, that children will find ways around them, and that the correct approach is to enforce the GDPR against the platforms themselves and invest in digital literacy rather than restricting young people’s participation in the information society.
The Declaration: A Non-Binding Commitment
On October 10, 2025, digital ministers from 25 of the European Union’s 27 member states signed the Jutland Declaration at an informal gathering in Horsens, Denmark. Norway and Iceland also signed. The declaration is a non-binding political commitment to:
- Introduce privacy-preserving age verification on social media platforms.
- Protect minors from addictive design features and dark patterns.
- Work toward what the document describes as a “digital legal age” for access to online services.
Estonia and Belgium were the two EU members that declined. Belgium’s refusal came from a veto by Flemish Media Minister Cieltje Van Achter, who described the declaration’s age verification requirements as disproportionate and objected to requiring children to use national identity systems such as Itsme to access services like YouTube or Instagram.
Estonia’s refusal was substantively different: principled rather than procedural, and rooted in a broader argument about where Europe’s regulatory effort should be directed.
Growing Social Media Age Restrictions in Europe
The political momentum the declaration reflects is considerable. Europe’s social media age shift accelerated through 2025 and into 2026, with:
- Australia implementing the world’s first ban on under-16s from December 2025.
- France passing legislation in January 2026 to prohibit under-15s.
- Spain enacting restrictions for under-16s in February 2026.
- Austria moving to restrict children under 14.
Greece announced it would ban under-15s from social media from 2027, part of a six-country EU grouping that also includes Denmark, France, Austria, Portugal, and Spain. On November 20, 2025, the European Parliament backed a non-binding resolution calling for an EU-wide digital minimum age of 16 by 483 votes to 92, with 86 abstentions, and called on the European Commission to incorporate the measure into the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act.
Estonia’s Dissent: Placing Blame and Regulatory Focus
Estonia’s dissent is articulated by two ministers who have approached the question from different but complementary angles. Kristina Kallas, Minister of Education and Research, has been the more outspoken critic of the ban consensus. At a Politico forum in Barcelona, Kallas argued that age restrictions place responsibility on the wrong party:
“The way to approach this, to me, is not to make kids responsible for that harm and start self-regulating.”
Her corresponding argument is that the responsibility should fall on the platforms. “Europe pretends to be weak when it comes to big American and international corporations,” she told the forum, challenging the EU to “actually take” a stand.