He additionally introduced that age verification will quickly be imposed in France on websites promoting knives on-line, much like measures that at the moment apply to pornographic websites.
“A 15-year-old will now not be capable of purchase a knife on-line. Which means we’ll impose large monetary sanctions and bans,” he promised. Earlier, Prime Minister François Bayrou had introduced he needed to shortly take steps to ban the sale of “all knives” to minors.
Later within the night, posting on X, Macron stated: “I am banning social media for youngsters underneath 15. Platforms have the power to confirm age. Let’s do it.”
French authorities are already progressing with efforts to drive sure social media websites — together with X, Reddit, Bluesky and Mastodon — to introduce age verification, by classifying them as pornographic web sites.
French measures forcing porn websites to confirm their customers’ ages got here into impact on June 7, prompting the world’s largest porn web site, Pornhub, to cease working in France. Demand for digital non-public community providers, which permit customers to trick web sites into considering they’re in a special location, instantly surged.
