On Friday, the Flemish Christian Democratic party, CD&V, proposed better protection for young children against addictive video content.
According to CD&V MEP, Liesbeth Sommen, many TV formats are currently designed to hold children's attention for as long as possible and often without any educational value. "More and more child development experts are warning that these programmes disrupt the natural learning process, particularly in terms of language development, problem solving and social interaction," she said.
The CD&V is therefore calling for stricter European rules for technology companies to make their content less addictive, with minimum quality standards, particularly in terms of educational value.
The party is calling for a ban on A/B testing (which involves showing two versions of a web page, for example) for young children. It calls for a ban on automatic reading and content that has no clear beginning or end, and a ban on "hyper-montages" that cause images to change after 1 or 2 seconds.
In addition, the CD&V wants a classification platform that allows parents to evaluate content themselves and indicate which content should be avoided.
"There is no shame in letting children watch television or use tablets. It's about finding the right balance [...] We need to make sure they see quality content. Not rubbish that harms them or rots their brains,’ concludes CD&V leader, Sammy Mahdi.
