{"id":465187,"date":"2026-09-16T16:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/16\/minori-online-ruotolo-sd-proteggerli-senza-impedire-laccesso-ai-vantaggi-di-internet\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T18:15:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:15:32","slug":"children-online-ruotolo-sd-protecting-them-without-preventing-them-from-accessing-the-benefits-of-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/16\/children-online-ruotolo-sd-protecting-them-without-preventing-them-from-accessing-the-benefits-of-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Children online, Ruotolo (S&D): \u201cProtecting them without preventing them from accessing the benefits of the internet\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

from our correspondent in Strasbourg<\/em> \u2013 There are two objectives, and they go hand in hand: \u201cTo protect young people and children online without preventing them from accessing the benefits offered by the internet,\u201d explained yesterday (15 September), at a press conference, the PD (S&D) MEP, Sandro Ruotolo<\/strong>, ahead of tomorrow (17 September) when MEPs, meeting in plenary session, will call on social media platforms to ban addictive practices and mitigate the impact of so-called “persuasive design”; and, on the same day, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>, and the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen<\/strong>, will present the so-called \u201cEU Children\u2019s Act<\/strong>\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ruotolo presented the findings of the report, for which he is the rapporteur, on the impact of social media and digital environments on young people, <\/a> commissioned by the European Parliament\u2019s Committee on Culture. The picture that emerges is of a fragmented Union, where “Member States are already taking action,” but where it is not acceptable \u201c<\/span><\/span>to have 27 age limits, 27 verification systems, 27 different rules.<\/strong>” <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The approach that Ruotolo hopes to see reflected in the new EU law is based on shifting responsibility from \u201cfamilies and teachers\u201d to \u201cplatforms\u201d \u2013 described as \u201cprimarily responsible for the safety of the environment they have created.\u201d \u201cWith our report, we want to break the mechanisms that turn children\u2019s attention into a product to be sold; we want recommendation systems not to push a child towards increasingly extreme or unsettling content automatically; we want to protect children from grooming, cyberbullying, and manipulative triviality,\u201d he explained. <\/span>As for age limits on social media use, Ruotolo believes we must await \u201cthe experts\u2019 conclusions\u201d from the European Commission before issuing \u201cscience<\/a>” the appropriate recommendations on the matter. But it is obvious that \u201cpoliticians must take responsibility for making the decision.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“On 13 July, President von der Leyen had announced<\/a> that concrete proposals would be forthcoming after the summer,”<\/strong> Ruotolo recalled, emphasising that he was awaiting “a strong political signal,<\/span><\/span> because today Europe faces a choice that affects millions of children and young people, and which ultimately concerns the model of society in which we want them to grow up, their health, their rights, and their well-being.\u201d<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

In detailing the situation, the MP cited some figures and data. <\/span><\/span>Children \u201caged between 11 and 14 spend up to 9 hours in front of a screen\u201d and, according to the World Health Organisation, \u201c<\/strong><\/span>one in ten teenagers exhibits problematic social media use with symptoms akin to addiction.<\/strong>” More specifically regarding artificial intelligence, between 2023 and 2025 \u201c<\/span><\/span>reports of AI-generated child sexual exploitation material have risen from around 5,000″ to more than one million. In this context, the harm extends to mental health, but also to physical health. \u201cShort-sightedness <\/span><\/span>is rising very sharply,\u201d the Socialist pointed out, to the extent that it could affect \u201chalf the world\u2019s population by 2050.\u201d Finally, the report<\/a> of the experts commissioned by the head of the Berlaymont Building reveals another alarming statistic: \u201c97 per cent of the most popular websites and apps in the European Union use at least one design mechanism capable of influencing users\u2019 choices.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 17 September, the Commission will present the “EU Children\u2019s Act”, which aims to protect children from online risks and regulate their access to online platforms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":465012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25710],"tags":[31262,25821,26096,34267,27368,34798,28347,28724,26326],"class_list":["post-465187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-net-tech-en","tag-artificial-intelligence-en","tag-commissione-europea-en","tag-henna-virkunnen","tag-meta-en","tag-minori-online","tag-patrioti-per-leuropa-en","tag-sandro-ruotolo-en","tag-states-united-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465188,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465187\/revisions\/465188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}