Safer Internet Day 2026

Safer Internet Day 2026 - letter.pdf

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Barry Andrews MEP

Chair of the Development Committee

European Parliament

Strasbourg, 10 February 2026

Dear Executive Vice President Virkkunen,

The European Commission has coordinated the annual Safer Internet Day for

over 20 years now, in dozens of countries worldwide.

While I welcome the great work done by you, your colleagues and many

thousands of people active on the ground on the initiative, we must admit that by

any fair assessment is not working. Certain social media platforms are today

more damaging, to more children, than ever before.

The recent Grok scandal is just the latest proof of how revolting much of the online

content still is today. There is no evidence social media is becoming safer despite

the best efforts of the EU thus far.

As the Executive Vice President responsible for Safer Internet Day, I urge you to

reform the initiative ahead of the 2027 edition.

The first change needed, in my view, is to end the association of platforms such

as X, Snap and TikTok which are listed online as officially ‘supporters’ of the

initiative. The involvement of large tech platforms in activities could be perceived

as a conflict of interest in my view.

The EU is the leading tech regulator is the world, and I applaud your efforts thus

far on the Digital Services Act, however I would urge even stronger and faster

enforcement. Recent years have shown the soft approach of parental controls,

media literacy and outreach to platforms is often ineffective and that only strong

enforcement of EU will make social media safer.

This task is of course extremely difficult given the structure of Internet law, that

platforms are in general not legally liable for content uploaded on their apps.

However, parents cannot wait for years for EU law to take full effect.

Groups involved in Safer Internet Day around Europe do a lot of very valuable

work, but parents are not hearing the most important message, which is to delay

buying a smartphone for their children for as long as possible.

I applaud grassroots parents’ initiative such as Smartphone Free Children which

support parents who choose not to buy a smartphone for their kids.

Separately, national governments should in my view introduce age verification

for children as soon as possible, using the EU Digital Wallet framework.

I thank you and your colleagues for developing that framework at a technical

level, which is vital in protecting our children online.

I look forward to Safer Internet Day 2027.

Sincerely,

Barry Andrews MEP