BERN - Switzerland's planned law on communication platforms and search engines is about to get teeth on youth protection. At its meeting on Wednesday, the Federal Council took note of the consultation results and instructed the transport and communications department, DETEC, to draw up the parliamentary dispatch by the end of June 2027, with new measures for children and teenagers folded into the draft.
The law would apply only to very large services: platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and YouTube, search engines like Google, and AI-powered services. They would have to analyse how their products create or amplify risks for minors, take measures to reduce those risks, and stop displaying personalised, profiling-based advertising to under-age users. The reporting procedure for illegal content is to be extended to all material suspected of being unlawful.
Transparency for the algorithm age
The rest of the draft survived the consultation largely intact. Very large platforms will have to explain and justify content removals and account suspensions, run an internal appeals procedure and join an out-of-court dispute settlement scheme. Advertising must be labelled and its targeting disclosed, recommender systems become subject to transparency rules, and researchers and civil society groups gain access to platform data for monitoring the societal impact.
Of the 214 responses received during the consultation, which ran from late October 2025 to mid-February 2026, a majority backed the government's approach, including the Centre Party, the Social Democrats, the Greens and 22 cantons. The cantons of Schwyz and Thurgau and the Swiss People's Party rejected it, warning of threats to freedom of expression and information.
No blanket ban
The most radical option under international discussion, a general social media ban for minors, was explicitly set aside. The government considers systematic age verification difficult to implement and problematic from a data protection perspective, preferring to raise the responsibilities of the platforms themselves. The expansion of youth protection also answers motions the Greens had tabled in parliament.
The timing is not accidental. The Crime Survey published this week shows fraud victimisation nearly doubling in three years, with three quarters of those offences committed online, including through social media. Parliament will decide on the platform law once the dispatch arrives in 2027.