The RGPD (General Regulation for Data Protection), which came into force on May 25, 2018, is supposed to protect our data, and thus do us good. But for children under 16 who use Twitter, the regulatory novelty has turned into a nightmare, since their accounts were simply blocked.
The GDPR requires children under the age of 16 who wish to use Twitter to obtain the written consent of a parent and send it to the social network.
To block child accounts, Twitter is based on the birth date entered
For Twitter users, the morning of May 25, 2018 has been more or less pleasant, depending on whether they are over 16 or under 16 years old. For the latter, the connection to their Twitter account that day was less usual, since the social network greeted them with a message informing them that they could not use Twitter until they get it. written agreement of a parent. Twitter has blocked the accounts of all its members who provided a date of birth prior to May 24, 2002. This blocking did not affect users who have not entered any date of birth.
Several testimonials, relayed on social networks (including Twitter itself), also draw the picture of an apparent mess, the parents who sent Twitter their letter of authorization have still not seen the accounts of their unlocked children.
Social networks: by default, 16 years remains the minimum age
And if you believe that the initiative of Twitter is overzealous, think again: it is the famous RGPD that requires it to pass its members under 16 years through this procedure. 16 years old, it is indeed the minimum age that sets the RGPD to register on community sites (forums, social networks ...). Each member state of the European Union can certainly lower this age for its residents (the absolute minimum age being 13 years), but as France has not done so, 16 years remains at our lowest age.
To avoid having to lose users, other social networks have been more clever. Facebook has, for example, changed its Terms of Use, so that its Irish members come under its US headquarters, and no longer its Irish subsidiary, in which case they would have been the subject of RGPD.
