Lithuania weighs 16-year social media age limit

Lithuania’s proposed 16-year age limit for social media use may be difficult to enforce without cooperation from major platforms, the chair of the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission, Mantas Martišius, told LRT. He suggested considering whether to wait for a common European Union decision, while the proposal’s author, MP Daiva Ulbinaitė, said Lithuania should not delay.

The debate over protecting minors also includes the regulation of social media algorithms. Viktoras Denisenko, an associate professor at Vilnius University’s Faculty of Communication, said regulating algorithms could be more effective than imposing bans. Ulbinaitė acknowledged that her proposal does not address algorithms.

“Whether they, the platforms, will be interested in cooperating with a small country remains an open question. Perhaps we should wait for a common European decision,” Martišius told ELTA.

Denisenko said it was currently difficult to assess what impact a 16-year age limit would have. Mechanically, such a measure would probably restrict access to disinformation narratives among people under 16, he said, but its effectiveness would be difficult to judge until the restriction had been in place for some time.

Proposal calls for national action

Ulbinaitė said the model proposed in Lithuania could work and that the country should not wait for a common EU decision.

“I think it is very important to adopt a decision at the national level as well and clearly send a message that in our country, Lithuania, we are defining the digital age of majority. I propose 16. Of course, we can discuss whether it should be 16 or 15 and see what Europe as a whole decides,” she told ELTA.

Ulbinaitė said subsequent common European decisions would strengthen national regulation rather than undermine it. She also proposed requiring platforms to verify users’ ages reliably, so that self-declaration alone would not be sufficient.

“There are certainly ways to determine a user’s age and authenticate it reliably. Platforms would be required to use such reliable age-verification measures,” she said.

Experts also focus on algorithms

Martišius said protecting minors should not be limited to checking their age. He said the way social networks operate was also important.

“The network algorithm itself, its creation and design cannot be changed from the outside; it has to be changed from within. In that sense, the platforms themselves have to do it,” Martišius said.

Denisenko also viewed algorithm regulation more favourably than bans alone, saying users could try to circumvent various restrictions.

“Practice shows that whenever restrictions appear, ways to circumvent them also emerge. We would like social media companies to regulate their own activities better, take a more critical approach to them and regulate those algorithms better,” he said.

Ulbinaitė acknowledged that her initiative does not regulate this area. “Algorithms are a separate matter. My proposal does not address algorithms,” she said.