European Union: European Commission adopted guidelines to enforce protection of minors online under Digital Services Act including content moderation regulation

On 14 July 2025, the European Commission published guidelines on the protection of minors under the Digital Services Act (DSA). These guidelines aim to ensure a safe online experience for children and young people by providing online platforms accessible to minors (excluding micro and small enterprises) with a non-exhaustive list of proportionate measures. The recommended actions address various online risks, including grooming, harmful content, problematic behaviours, cyberbullying, and harmful commercial practices. The guidelines suggest measures such as setting minors' accounts to private by default to limit unsolicited contact, modifying recommender systems to reduce exposure to harmful content and improve user control over feeds, and empowering minors with blocking and muting capabilities while preventing them from being added to groups without consent. They also recommend prohibiting the downloading or screenshotting of minors' content, disabling features that encourage excessive use like communication streaks or autoplay, and removing persuasive design elements. Furthermore, the guidelines propose measures to prevent the exploitation of children’s lack of commercial literacy, including avoiding manipulative practices and gambling-like features such as certain virtual currencies or loot boxes. Recommendations also cover improving moderation and reporting tools, ensuring prompt feedback, setting minimum requirements for parental controls, and using effective, non-intrusive age assurance methods like age verification for adult content or age estimation in other cases. The guidelines adopt a risk-based approach, recognising varied platform risks, are grounded in children’s rights and a safety and privacy by design approach, and will be used by the Commission and national regulators to assess compliance with Article 28(1) of the DSA. Adherence is voluntary but informs enforcement actions.