Lithuania

Nepilnamečių apsaugos nuo neigiamo viešosios informacijos poveikio įstatymas (Nr. IX-1067) 4 ir 7 str.

Effective 2021-02-01 · Applies to both

Article 4 classifies public information causing a negative effect on minors' mental or physical health or their physical, mental, spiritual or moral development. Content of an erotic nature is one of the categories the article lists, alongside violence, gambling promotion, self-harm, and other harmful subject matter.

A Constitutional Court ruling of 18 December 2024 held point 16 of Article 4(2), which covered information disparaging family values, contrary to the Constitution, and the Register of Legal Acts records the ruling as an amendment of that point dated 18 December 2024. The restrictions, exceptions and prohibitions this Law sets apply to all public information, including advertising, commercial audiovisual messages, trailers, trademarks, user-generated video, and public events.

Article 7 bars disseminating such information directly to minors and confines it to places minors cannot access or times they would not be using it, unless the discloser instead uses technical measures that let a person responsible for a child's upbringing control the child's exposure, among them tools intended to verify a user's age, parental-control tools, or content-filtering systems.

Content still reaching a general audience without such technical measures must instead carry an index and observe a broadcast-time band.

Index 'S' runs from 23:00 to 06:00, index 'N-14' runs from 21:00 to 06:00 for content harmful to under-14s, and index 'N-7' applies at any time for content harmful to under-7s. A provider of public computer-network (internet) access must install and operate content-filtering measures the Communications Regulatory Authority (Ryšių reguliavimo tarnyba, RRT) approves, and RRT itself supervises that duty's implementation.

A computer game's producer or distributor must separately label the game by a user age threshold under Government-set procedure. Supervision of the Law's implementation generally rests with the Inspector (Žurnalistų etikos inspektorius, the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics). The Inspector may open administrative-offense proceedings under the Code of Administrative Offenses and impose an administrative penalty against a violator.

Source: Full text of law

Lietuvos Respublikos visuomenės informavimo įstatymas Nr. I-1418, 40-3 ir 40-4 str., kaip pakeista Nr. XIV-180

Effective 2021-02-01 · Applies to private

Article 40-4 of the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public requires video-sharing platform providers under Lithuanian jurisdiction to take measures to protect minors from programmes, user-generated videos and commercial audiovisual communications that spread information with a negative effect on minors.

Paragraph 2 of that Article lists the measures a provider implements at its choice, among them the creation and application of age-verification systems for platform users in respect of content with a negative effect on minors. Paragraph 2 also lists parental control systems managed by end users for such content. Under paragraph 3, the strictest access-control measures must be applied to the most harmful content.

Under paragraph 5, the Radio and Television Commission assesses the measures and may require a provider to apply specific measures where it finds the chosen ones inappropriate. Law XIV-180 replaced Article 40-4 with its present text. The amending Law took effect on 1 February 2021.

Source: Full text of law