The Battle for Childhood Takes Centre Stage at NATO Summit

At a parallel gathering in Ankara, the spouses of NATO leaders argued that the greatest threat to the next generation may not come from missiles or military alliances, but from the invisible power of social media algorithms and artificial intelligence.

By Abdullahi Yusuf

As presidents and prime ministers gathered behind closed doors to debate wars, defence spending and the future of global security, another conversation was unfolding a few kilometres away, one that participants argued could shape the lives of millions of children long after today’s geopolitical conflicts have ended.

Inside the historic Cankaya Presidential Palace in Ankara, the spouses of leaders attending the 36th NATO Summit turned the spotlight away from battlefields and borders to what they described as an increasingly urgent security challenge: the growing influence of digital technology on children.

Hosted by Türkiye’s First Lady, Emine Erdoğan, the roundtable, titled “Children, Technology and Security: Protecting the Next Generation,” brought together the spouses of presidents, prime ministers and senior international leaders to examine the risks posed by social media, artificial intelligence and digital platforms.

Their message was clear: safeguarding children in the digital age should be treated as a matter of national and international security rather than simply a question of parental responsibility.

Opening the discussion, Mrs Erdoğan called for governments to take a far more active role in regulating technology companies, warning that the safety of children should be embedded into the design of digital platforms from the outset rather than introduced as an optional feature after products reach the market.

“Child safety must not be an additional setting or an afterthought added to digital platforms,” she said. “It must be the very first principle of their design.”

She also urged greater transparency from technology companies, arguing that the algorithms influencing the online experiences of billions of young people should no longer remain beyond public scrutiny.

“The black box of the algorithms must be opened,” she said. “Technology companies must submit the societal impact of their products to independent oversight.”

Her remarks reflected growing international concern over the impact of social media, artificial intelligence and digital addiction on children’s mental health, emotional wellbeing and social development.

Drawing on UNICEF data, Mrs Erdoğan noted that around 60 children connect to the internet every 30 seconds, meaning that by the time her address had begun, dozens more had entered a digital world offering both unprecedented opportunities and significant risks.

She argued that children are no longer simply using technology but are increasingly being shaped by it.

“While children are watching the screen, the screen is also watching them,” she said, warning that algorithms designed primarily to maximise user engagement are increasingly influencing children’s behaviour, emotions and even their beliefs.

According to studies she cited, nearly one in three young people now prefer speaking to artificial intelligence rather than another person.

“Artificial intelligence has become the confidant and the mentor of the new generation,” she said.

Mrs Erdoğan warned that children themselves had become valuable commodities in an economy driven by attention and personal data, where a small number of technology companies exercise unprecedented influence over billions of users worldwide.

She described the phenomenon as “techno-colonialism”—a form of dominance that no longer seeks control over land or natural resources but instead targets human attention, behaviour and thought.

“In this techno-colonialism, whose territory is the mind and whose resource is attention, our children stand the most defenceless,” she said.

Governments, she argued, could no longer afford to leave children’s digital lives almost entirely in the hands of private technology firms whose commercial success depends largely on capturing and retaining users’ attention.

Drawing a comparison with public health, she said no responsible parent would administer an untested medicine to a child without medical supervision, and governments should apply the same principle to digital technologies that shape childhood.

“Companies are accountable to their shareholders,” she said. “States are accountable to their people.”

Mrs Erdoğan highlighted measures already introduced in Türkiye, including restrictions on social media access for children under the age of 15, alongside stronger age verification requirements and enhanced parental control mechanisms.

She also welcomed the “Shaping the Future Together” initiative led by United States First Lady Melania Trump, describing it as an important platform for cooperation among leaders’ spouses on issues affecting children globally.

However, she cautioned that awareness campaigns alone would not be enough to address the scale of the challenge.

“If the river continues to be polluted, we cannot be satisfied by distributing filters on the riverbank,” she said, calling instead for structural reforms to how digital platforms are designed and regulated.

The discussion also heard contributions from France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, who has long championed education and child welfare, alongside spouses and representatives from more than a dozen NATO member and partner countries, including Ukraine, Canada, Germany, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, South Korea and the European Commission.

Following the meeting, the visiting guests attended a luncheon showcasing dishes from across Türkiye before touring an exhibition celebrating the country’s artistic and cultural heritage through traditional weaving, embroidery, ceramics and textiles representing Anatolian, Mesopotamian, Ottoman and modern Turkish craftsmanship.

Yet it was the discussion inside the palace, not the ceremonial programme afterwards that provided one of the most striking moments of the wider NATO gathering.

While military leaders focused on conventional threats posed by war, regional instability and defence, the spouses of world leaders argued that another conflict is unfolding quietly in homes, classrooms and on smartphones around the globe.

Their warning suggested that the next great security challenge may not be measured only by armies, missiles or alliances, but also by the unseen algorithms shaping how the next generation learns, thinks and grows.

In doing so, the parallel summit broadened the meaning of security itself, placing the digital lives of children alongside the geopolitical challenges dominating the NATO agenda and calling for governments to treat online safety as an issue of international importance rather than a purely technological concern.

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