Ammon News - Chancellor Friedrich Merz backed growing calls in Germany for controls on access to social media platforms by children, saying he had become increasingly persuaded of the need for compulsory limits by evidence of the harm done by the deliberate spreading of fake news and other forms of online manipulation.

"Do we want to allow artificially generated false news, fake news, artificially generated films and misrepresentations to be spread via social media?" he said in a speech ahead of his conservative Christian Union's annual party conference. "Do we want to allow our society to be undermined in this way, both internally and externally, and our young people and children to be endangered in this way?" he said, noting that 14-year-olds spent an average of five and a half hours a day online.

The CDU party conference on Friday is due to debate a motion calling for a ban on allowing access to platforms like TikTok or Instagram for children under the age of 16 and similar calls have been made by Merz's centre-left Social Democrat coalition partners.

A growing number of countries in Europe, including Spain, Greece, France and Britain are looking at similar social media bans or restrictions, following the example of Australia, which last year became the first country in the world to force platforms to cut off access for children.

Reuters