This Law could literally Kill Gaming!
The EU Kids Act (Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy Act), proposed by the European Commission in September 2026, sets EU-wide age tiers and safety-by-design rules for social media, games, and AI platforms, but critics argue it harms privacy, digital freedoms, and open access.
What the EU Kids Act Does
Under 13: Prohibits independent social media and video-sharing accounts entirely, allowing limited access only via guardian accounts with a daily one-hour limit.
Ages 13 to 14: Restricts minors to parent-supervised "mini accounts" with strict feature and contact caps.
Ages 15 to 17: Allows independent accounts, but mandates platforms to remove addictive designs (like infinite scrolling) and protect youth from harmful content.
Scope: Extends beyond social networks to video platforms, online games, and AI chatbots.
In a recently released video, the consumer advocacy group Stop Killing Games and its creator, YouTuber Ross Scott, have expressed concern with the European Union’s recently proposed EU Kids Act, which Scott has referred to as a “bomb that could implode the whole video games industry.”
According to digital rights groups like EDRi and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the proposal presents several major concerns:
Threat to Privacy and Surveillance: Digital rights groups state that enforcing strict age verification demands intrusive identity checks or ID-linking infrastructure, undermining online anonymity and civil liberties for both adults and children.
Censorship and Freedom of Expression: Critics argue that sweeping restrictions and rigid age gates degrade freedom of speech and bar access to information, treating broad platforms with bans rather than fixing core design issues.
Cementing Big Tech Dominance: Complex compliance standards and heavy safety-by-design rules create massive financial and operational burdens, which small and medium enterprises (SMEs) struggle to afford, ultimately strengthening large tech monopolies.
Bypassed Formal Assessment: Opponents have criticized the European Commission for rushing the regulation and failing to conduct a formal, thorough impact assessment before proposing the text.
Missed Opportunity: Civil society organizations argue the law focuses on keeping users out rather than fundamentally reforming the dangerous algorithmic business models that put everyone at risk.
This is yet another example of the government using children as an excuse to forcing Digital ID and online surveillance and pushing it through the backdoor!
Please share the petition forum wide so we can get this law stopped!
Thank you to everyone who has signed the petition so far.