“We have to stop talking about children and start talking with them,” says Moritz Katzner of Stop Killing the Internet. As the EU weighs age limits for social media, he tells EU Perspectives why he believes Europe is taking the wrong approach to protecting young people online.
After taking its campaign to preserve video games to the European institutions, the movement behind Stop Killing Games broadened its focus. In June, its organisers launched Stop Killing the Internet, a sister initiative opposing what it describes as the growing use of identity checks, platform restrictions and online monitoring.
The campaign comes as Brussels considers a common EU age limit for social media and revives the extension of the exemption to voluntarily detect child sexual abuse material online, called by critics “chat control”.
EU Perspectives spoke with Moritz Katzner, General Director for European Affairs and the United States Advisory for Stop Killing Games and Stop Killing the Internet, about the initiatives and their positions around age verification, addictive algorithms, private communications, and how governments should respond to online harms.
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How did Stop Killing Games lead to the creation of a movement focused on protecting the internet?
For us, the two issues are closely connected. Stop Killing Games is fundamentally about digital ownership and whether people should be able to continue using something they have paid for when a company stops supporting it.
Community-run and private servers are among the possible ways of keeping games playable. But those spaces could become difficult or impossible to operate if every small provider is expected to introduce expensive identity checks, age-verification systems or other compliance infrastructure.
Large companies can afford compliance departments and verification providers. Small forums, community servers and game studios may not be able to do so. That could leave us with an internet in which only the largest companies can afford to operate.
That concern goes far beyond games. During the pandemic, many young people were pushed towards online platforms because governments and society did not provide alternative spaces for them. The internet became a place for education, friendship, culture, entertainment and political discussion. Now, governments are moving in the opposite direction and talking about excluding young people from those spaces.
The internet can be harmful. Nobody disputes that. But if a town hall has problems, you address the problems inside it. You do not close the town hall or demand identity papers from everybody at the entrance.
What are the principal priorities of Stop Killing the Internet?
The first priority is creating a global and public dialogue about how the internet should be governed. The internet is international. We do not want it to become fragmented into national spaces in which every government creates separate identity barriers, bans and monitoring systems. That dialogue should include governments, civil-society organisations, technical experts, companies, parents and, most importantly, children and young people.
We have to stop talking only about children and start talking with them. The people most affected by these decisions must have a place at the table. The process must also be transparent. People should be able to see the evidence, the arguments and which organisations are influencing policy.
Our second priority is to develop positive alternatives. We are not simply saying that we oppose age checks or communications scanning. We want education, action against predatory behaviour, properly resourced police and courts, platform accountability, transparent algorithms and rules against addictive design.
In the longer term, we would like this dialogue to produce an international, rights-respecting framework for the internet. It should preserve the internet’s global character while establishing enforceable responsibilities for governments and platforms.
Age verification is one of the campaign’s main concerns. Why?
Children’s safety is being invoked to justify increasingly broad restrictions, but the people most affected are still often absent from the discussion. Governments are considering age limits, curfews, time restrictions and barriers to services such as social-media platforms, video platforms, forums and community spaces. Those policies create practical questions about what people will have to provide to gain access. In many cases, the answer will involve some form of age or identity verification.
When people are required to prove their identity or age to participate in public life online, governments and companies create new databases, technical dependencies and potential security targets. Age-verification obligations may also reinforce platform monopolies. Large companies can afford compliance departments and verification providers. Small forums, independent platforms, community servers and game studios may not be able to do so. That could leave us with an internet in which only the largest companies can afford to operate.
The European Commission says its system will allow users to prove that they are over 18 without disclosing their identity or precise age. Why are you still concerned?
The Commission presents the system as privacy-preserving, and I recognise that efforts are being made to limit the information disclosed to individual platforms. The intention is that a service would receive confirmation that somebody is above the relevant age threshold rather than receiving the person’s name, identity or precise age.
My concern is about the wider infrastructure and the precedent it creates. At some point, a claim about somebody’s age must be verified against some source of information. Citizens are being asked to trust all the institutions, devices, technical providers and verification processes involved.
Children need a meaningful role in shaping these policies. We should not claim to be protecting them while refusing to listen to what they say about their relationships, communities and experiences online.
We have already seen what can happen when sensitive identity information is processed by third parties. In 2025, a customer-service provider used by Discord was compromised. Discord said approximately 70,000 users may have had government-ID photographs exposed after submitting them in connection with age-related appeals.
Discord has stressed that the provider involved in that incident is not one of the vendors being used for its newer age-assurance system and that its current approach does not require universal ID uploads or facial scans.
Nevertheless, incidents like that demonstrate why citizens are entitled to scrutinise the entire infrastructure and not simply the information eventually shown to a platform. Once identity or age-verification infrastructure exists, people are also entitled to ask whether its use could later be expanded. It is not enough to tell people that the system is safe. Its architecture, safeguards and risks must be open to independent examination.
Does that mean the movement opposes all restrictions intended to protect very young children online?
No. I think it can be beneficial for very young children not to have unrestricted access to the internet. My own parents kept me away from it when I was very young, and I believe that helped me. But there is no single solution to every form of online harm.
Blanket exclusion also creates another problem. If someone is kept entirely away from digital environments until the age of 16 or 18, that person may then be placed in those environments without experience or preparation.
Children need protected spaces in which they can learn how the internet works. They need parents, teachers and other trusted adults who can help them navigate it safely. That requires investment in schools, media literacy and digital education.
Children also need a meaningful role in shaping these policies. We should not claim to be protecting them while refusing to listen to what they say about their relationships, communities and experiences online.
How should governments respond to the dangers children face online?
First, we need much greater transparency and user control over algorithms. Addictive design affects adults as well as children. Platforms should not be allowed to design systems whose central purpose is to keep people scrolling for as long as possible. An algorithm should serve the user. People should be able to understand why material is being recommended, change those recommendations and choose a chronological or non-personalised service.
Second, we need properly funded police services, courts and international cooperation. When investigators identify criminal material or predatory behaviour, authorities must be able to act quickly. Court delays and disputes over jurisdiction should not leave harmful material accessible for months or years.
Private communications are private for a reason. Saying that people with nothing to hide should not be concerned is not an adequate response. Confidentiality protects journalists, lawyers, victims, political opposition, children seeking assistance and ordinary citizens.
Third, platforms must be held accountable for their design choices and for failures to enforce their own rules. Companies with billions in revenue, large engineering teams and full control over their services should not be less capable of identifying abuse than independent researchers or content creators.
Finally, young people must be included in designing these policies. Do not claim to speak for children while refusing to speak with them.
The Council of the EU recently approved renewal of the temporary exemption from EU privacy rules permitting voluntary detection of child sexual abuse material. What is your reaction?
The amended text excludes communications protected, or intended to be protected, by end-to-end encryption. That is an important safeguard. But the wider debate remains significant.
People need to understand which technologies may be used, which communications services will be covered, what information could be examined and what happens when an automated system makes a mistake.
Private communications are private for a reason. Saying that people with nothing to hide should not be concerned is not an adequate response. Confidentiality protects journalists, lawyers, victims, political opposition, children seeking assistance and ordinary citizens.
Any interference must be necessary, targeted and proportionate. We cannot establish a system in which everybody’s communications are treated as potentially suspicious because a small proportion of users may be committing crimes.
Stop Killing Games mobilised more than one million Europeans. Has that experience changed how you view internet-based political movements?
Yes. One of the most encouraging parts of the campaign was seeing people engage directly with European institutions for the first time. Members of the European Parliament told us they received hundreds of messages from people who had watched an entire committee hearing or parliamentary debate.
Some participants said they had never previously felt that an EU political process represented something connected to their daily lives. That matters because many people have lost their connection to representative institutions. They vote, but they do not necessarily feel that their vote leads to action they can see.
The internet can be toxic. People sometimes react to headlines without understanding the issue, and campaigners can receive serious abuse. We experienced that as well. But the internet can also help people organise across borders, understand political processes and hold institutions accountable.
How has the Commission’s response to the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative affected the campaign?
The Commission’s response acknowledges that the initiative would not necessarily conflict with intellectual-property law, but it also relies heavily on intellectual-property considerations when explaining why it will not propose a binding obligation.
We are examining how the response was developed and which stakeholders were consulted. We have requested documents through access-to-information procedures. I do not yet have all those documents, so I do not want to draw definitive conclusions about the process.
The important point is that the campaign does not end with the Commission’s response. The Commission has agreed to bring consumers and publishers together to discuss a code of conduct dealing with the end of support for video games. We will participate in that process, but voluntary standards must produce meaningful results.
We are also looking towards the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act. The issues raised by Stop Killing Games are fundamentally about consumer expectations, digital contracts and whether a company should be permitted to remotely disable a product somebody has purchased.
The Commission’s response was not the end of the campaign. It marked the beginning of its next phase.
