BERLIN, Feb 6 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives are considering barring children under the age of 16 from social media, although there were signs of reluctance from his centre-left coalition partners to an outright ban. Since Australia became the first country to ban the use of social media platforms by children last year, a growing number of countries in Europe have taken or considered similar steps on concerns over the perceived negative effects of social media use on young people. Dennis Radtke, head of the influential labour wing of Merz's CDU party, said the "dynamic developments in social media" were outstripping media literacy. "In many places, social media is a collection of hate and fake news. I, therefore, welcome the idea of following Australia's example and introducing an age limit," he told Reuters. However, Johannes Schätzl, the digital policy spokesperson from the Social Democrats, Merz's centre-left coalition partners, said he would be against an outright ban, calling for effective controls by the platforms themselves. He said that while social media posed risks for young people, it also opened up opportunities for participation and opinion forming. He said social media platforms had to regulate their business models to provide proper protection for young people, with clear safeguards and bans on aggressive algorithmic recommendation systems for minors. "Against this background, I do not currently consider a blanket ban on social media for under-16s to be effective," he told Reuters. CDU TO DISCUSS SOCIAL MEDIA MINIMUM AGE AT PARTY CONFERENCE Bild newspaper said the local CDU party from the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein had filed a motion to be discussed at the party's upcoming national conference on February 20-21. The CDU is the largest party in Germany's coalition government that also includes the centre-left SPD. "A statutory minimum age of 16 for open platforms, accompanied by mandatory age verification, sets a clear protective boundary and takes into account the special developmental needs of young people," Bild quoted the motion as saying. It did not say which platforms restrictions might apply to but said the motion named TikTok as well as Meta's Instagram and Facebook. The newspaper quoted CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann as saying he supported the strict age restriction. "I am in favour of social media from the age of 16," he told the newspaper. "Children have a right to childhood. We must protect children from hatred, violence, crime and manipulative disinformation in the digital world as well. On social networks, they are exposed to content that they cannot classify and process," he said. There has been growing discussion of the potential negative effects of social media on children in Germany, and the government last year appointed a special commission to look into protecting young people from potential harm online. That commission is expected to report later this year. Thorsten Schmiege, head of the body that groups media regulators at state level, told Reuters that issues like cyberbullying, online sexual harassment and hate speech were being taken very seriously. Social media platforms, he said, needed to take action. "If voluntary measures aren't enough, a ban as a final step comes into consideration," he said. (Reporting by Andreas Rinke, additional reporting by Joern Poltz; Writing by James Mackenzie and Joe Bavier)
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