Social Media and Minors in Italy: What the Government's Bill Provides and What Changes for Digital Companies

An issue that concerns everyone, not just parents

When the subject turns to social media and minors, the conversation tends to stay within the bounds of pedagogy and current affairs. We discuss overexposed teenagers, algorithms that create addiction, dramatic episodes that reignite the debate for a few weeks — and then everything settles down again, waiting for the next case.

This time, however, something is changing. The Meloni government has presented a draft bill structured in ten articles that, if approved, will not only change the digital habits of Italian families: it will rewrite the rules of the game for anyone operating online, from the big platforms down to the SMEs that use social media as a marketing and communication channel.

The news is fresh: the draft emerged in early April 2026, following a summit at Palazzo Chigi coordinated by Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano and attended by Ministers Valditara, Roccella, Foti and Butti. It still has to complete its institutional path — the text will go to AgCom and to the Data Protection Authority before final approval — but the political direction is clear. This article explains what it provides for, the context in which it sits, and what it concretely means for those who work in the digital sector.

The context: years of announcements, a real urgency

Before getting into the substance of the draft, it is worth understanding why this issue has exploded right now.

Italy is no stranger to debates on social media and minors. The parliamentary debate has dragged on for years, with bills tabled, procedural deadlocks, committees stuck. The so-called Social Bill (bill no. 1136), signed by Brothers of Italy senator Lavinia Mennuni with 22 Meloni co-signatories and the support of the opposition, had been stalled in committee in the Senate since 21 October 2025: five months of unjustified delay for a text that was ready and cross-party.

The catalyst that spurred the government into action — bypassing the parliamentary path already under way to rewrite a new text — was a news event: a thirteen-year-old stabbed a teacher in Trescore Balneario, in the province of Bergamo, streaming the assault live on Telegram. The episode reignited a discussion that the data had already been fuelling for some time.

According to the Italian National Institute of Health, 13.5% of Italian adolescents show problematic use of digital platforms. 94% of minors own a personal smartphone. And even though the law already set digital consent at 14 (with the possibility of derogation to 13), platforms have continued to operate with an age-verification system based on self-declaration: a date of birth entered by the user, easily falsified by anyone over 8.

The international landscape has increased the pressure: Australia banned access to social media for under-16s in 2025; Greece announced similar measures from 2027; in the United States, Meta was ordered by a Los Angeles jury to pay 3 million dollars to a woman who claimed she had become addicted to social media from the age of six, while just hours earlier it had received a separate 375-million-dollar judgment in New Mexico in favour of a group of teenagers. For Italy, standing still meant falling behind.

What the draft bill provides for: the main points

The draft is made up of ten articles and moves along three main axes.

The first axis is the age limit. Signing up independently to social networks and video-sharing platforms — including YouTube and WhatsApp — will be allowed only from the age of fifteen. Below that threshold, no self-managed profiles. The age of 15 is the one indicated as the main political objective, although the debate leaves open the possibility of lowering it to 14.

The second axis concerns devices. This is the most innovative element and, probably, the one with the most immediate practical impact. Smartphone manufacturers, distributors, retailers and telecom operators will be required to supply devices already configured with mandatory parental controls. In the basic version, devices provided to minors will only be able to: make voice calls, send messages to authorised contacts, block sites with dangerous content and store the sites visited. Only parents will be able to remove these blocks. Those who fail to comply with the rules risk administrative penalties.

The third axis concerns the platforms. The draft aims to overcome the so-called "academic bans" — those already in place but easily circumvented — by introducing technically more robust age-verification systems. It will not move towards facial recognition, deemed too invasive. Instead, work is focused on systems based on certified digital identity tools such as SPID or CIE, which attest to the age requirement without creating a surveillance database.

The text also includes two bans aimed directly at platforms: a stop to the algorithmic profiling of minors (tracking behaviour to fuel dopamine addiction) and a ban on infinite scroll, constant notifications and other mechanisms designed to maximise time spent on the platform.

The knots still to be untied

The draft is ambitious, but the technical and legal problems are far from resolved.

The main one is age verification. If asking every user to authenticate with SPID or CIE solves the problem of minors, it simultaneously creates a potentially vast database of real identities linked to digital behaviour — with enormous risks in the event of a data breach or improper commercial use. The most critical legal experts speak of the need to assess compliance with the GDPR and with the data-minimisation principle. A technological "third way" based on Zero-Knowledge Proof protocols — which make it possible to attest possession of a requirement (age) without revealing identity — is technically feasible but not yet widespread.

Then there is the problem of enforcement: who checks that manufacturers and operators actually comply with the obligations? How often? With what resources? The experience of recent years shows that rules without effective control mechanisms remain a dead letter.

Finally, there is the question of compatibility with the European Digital Services Act: the draft will have to be harmonised with the EU regulatory framework, which adds an institutional step that may lengthen the timeline — and modify the text.

What it means for companies that do digital marketing

Here opens the chapter that most closely concerns anyone managing the digital communication of an SME.

The starting point is this: if a significant share of the under-15 audience disappears from traditional platforms, or accesses them with limited and non-profilable profiles, the entire social media marketing ecosystem undergoes a structural change.

For many sectors — apparel, food, sport, gaming, education — the young target is central. Today it can be reached through Instagram, TikTok and YouTube with relative ease. Tomorrow, with a functioning age-verification system, that segment will be accessible only through certified platforms and controlled environments, or through different channels.

The practical implications are at least three.

The first concerns targeting and profiling. With the ban on the algorithmic profiling of minors, advertising campaigns aimed at a young audience will lose a significant part of their effectiveness. Retargeting, lookalike audiences, cross-referenced interests — all tools that work on the basis of behavioural data — will become unusable for that segment. Those who depend on these mechanisms will have to rethink their strategy.

The second concerns content. To avoid penalties, platforms may tighten their content moderation and classification systems on their own initiative. Already today Meta and Google have introduced voluntary measures for under-18s (notification limits, supervised profiles, content restrictions). With a law that exposes them to concrete civil liability, these mechanisms will become much stricter — and may also affect legitimate content that gets classified as "unsuitable".

The third concerns reputation. Companies that fail to adapt — or worse, those that try to circumvent the new rules to keep reaching minors — will expose themselves to a growing reputational risk. Public sensitivity on this issue is high and rising. Being associated with aggressive targeting practices towards young people is a reputational harm that no PR campaign can easily repair.

How to prepare now, before the law takes effect

The draft is not yet law. But the process is under way, the political will is cross-party, and the European context is pushing in the same direction. Waiting for the text to be final before starting to think about it would be a mistake.

There are a few moves an SME can make today.

The first is to map how much of your marketing relies on potentially under-15 audiences. Not all companies have this problem: those selling B2B services or products for adults can rest relatively easy. But those in the consumer space — especially in the lifestyle, sport and education sectors — need to understand exactly how much of their actual audience falls within the segment that will be regulated.

The second is to diversify channels. A digital strategy that depends almost exclusively on Meta or TikTok to reach young people is structurally fragile. Newsletters, podcasts, closed communities, certified platforms for minors: these are channels to develop now, not when the law is in force.

The third is to review your own age-verification systems, if you run an e-commerce store or a platform with direct access. Regulatory expectations are rising: a checkbox saying "I declare I am over 13" will no longer be enough. Preparing in advance means avoiding urgent technical updates made under pressure.

Conclusion

The bill on social media and minors is not just a matter of protecting children, even though that protection is necessary and urgent. It is a precise signal of where the regulation of the digital world is heading in Italy and in Europe: towards more responsibility for platforms, more obligations for those who distribute devices, more attention to the impact of algorithms on public health.

For SMEs operating in the digital sector, the message is simple: this change is coming, on a timeline we do not yet know, but in a direction now defined. Those who start adapting their strategy today — reviewing targeting, diversifying channels, building an approach to communication that does not depend on profiling minors — will find themselves in a position of advantage when the rules change for good.

If you want to understand how these new regulations affect your digital strategy, or how to rethink your approach to social media marketing in the light of a rapidly evolving regulatory context, contact us for a free consultation.

A126 Corporate Advisors — Digital strategy for a market that is changing the rules.