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A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Delhi High Court seeking directions to prohibit children below the age of 13 from accessing social media platforms and to frame a comprehensive regulatory framework for protecting minors from harmful online content and digital addiction.
The matter was briefly taken up on Wednesday by a Bench comprising Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia. During the hearing, Justice Karia recused himself from hearing the case. The matter is now expected to be listed before another Bench. The petition has been filed by Kirti Dua, the mother of a three-year-old child, along with Dr Sharad Gupta, a paediatrician. It has arrayed the Union of India through the Ministries of Electronics and Information Technology, Women and Child Development, Education and Health, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), and major social media companies including Meta, Alphabet (Google), Telegram, Snap Inc. and X Corp. as respondents. According to the petition, children are increasingly being exposed to sexually explicit and age-inappropriate content, cyberbullying and addictive platform designs, which adversely affect their mental, emotional and physical well-being. It contends that despite existing laws such as the Information Technology Act, the IT Rules, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act and the POCSO Act, implementation remains inadequate. The plea seeks directions to the Union Government to formulate binding legislation and guidelines restricting access to social media platforms by children under 13 years of age, besides creating robust age-verification and parental consent mechanisms. It also seeks measures to make social media platforms accountable for ensuring child safety online and preventing minors from accessing harmful content. The petition relies on various judicial precedents, including decisions of the Supreme Court and the Madras High Court concerning online child safety and child sexual abuse material, as well as developments in foreign jurisdictions that have introduced stricter safeguards for minors on social media. It argues that India requires a comprehensive statutory framework to address the growing problem of digital addiction and online harms faced by children. (ANI)
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