Overview

• Education Minister Karin Prien’s newly formed Expertenkommission Kinder- und Jugendschutz in der digitalen Welt will begin work within weeks to develop a national child-protection strategy and examine a ban on social-media use for under-16s.
• The Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina has urged a tiered approach, proposing a strict ban for children under 13, supervised access for 13- to 15-year-olds, and protections up to age 18 against personalized ads and endless scrolling.
• An EU-Commission age-verification app is being piloted in five member states to block under-age users from platforms privately and securely, with Digital Services Act rules set to take effect by 2026.
• Political leaders remain divided: Karin Prien, Mario Voigt and Cem Özdemir support strict age thresholds, whereas Markus Söder and Julia Klöckner caution that outright bans are unrealistic and emphasize media literacy.
• Youth-advocacy groups warn that rigid bans and verification requirements could disproportionately cut off vulnerable teens, particularly queer youth, from vital online information and peer support.