Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, in a written answer on 20 July 2026, defended the European Union's regulatory framework for protecting children online, arguing that the Digital Services Act (DSA) and pending legislation on child sexual abuse provide stronger safeguards than in the United States. The answer, responding to a question from MEP Luděk Niedermayer (PPE), comes amid a wave of US lawsuits against platforms like Roblox, which critics have called a paradise for sexual predators. Virkkunen stressed that the DSA requires platforms accessible to minors to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security, and pointed to DSA guidelines that recommend measures such as preventing unconnected accounts from contacting minors and automatically hiding children's activity from strangers.
in March 2026, the Commission opened proceedings against Snapchat over concerns related to grooming of minors, while the Dutch Digital Services Coordinator launched an investigation into Roblox. She also referenced the special panel on child safety online, which examined how to strengthen Europe's toolbox for protecting minors, including in video games. The answer reiterated the Commission's support for the proposed Regulation on preventing and combatting child sexual abuse, which would impose obligations on providers to prevent, detect, report, remove, and block such abuse, and called on co-legislators to reach an agreement as soon as possible.
The answer contained no new concrete proposals or numerical targets, instead reaffirming existing commitments and enforcement actions. It signals that the Commission views the DSA and the pending child sexual abuse regulation as the primary instruments for addressing online child safety, with enforcement by both the Commission and national Digital Services Coordinators as the key mechanism. The response did not directly compare EU and US protection levels in detail, but asserted that the EU's regulatory framework provides a higher level of protection through binding obligations and active enforcement.