EU KIDS Act caps teen social media at one hour

The European Commission proposed its KIDS Act, which would limit social-media use for 13-to-under-15s to one hour per day and turn AI companions and chatbots off by default. The Commission’s proposal also requires age checks and puts the burden on very large platforms to show child safety; Parliament and Council must still negotiate it before it becomes law. Product teams shipping AI companion systems built around 345 million users should treat default-off, age assurance, and emotional-dependency controls as design constraints, not policy afterthoughts.