Will India follow China's lead when it comes to kids and social media platforms?
An age restriction for social media platforms is desirable in light of how dependent youngsters have become on social media, according to Hon'ble Justice Narendar, a sitting judge of the Karnataka High Court, who made this observation last week. My teenage kid spends an undetermined amount of hours on Discord, has a private Instagram account, and engages in several unknown (to me) online activities. For a brief minute, I wished that the law already existed! During a hearing for an appeal filed by X Corp (Formerly Twitter), the honorable judge made this remark.
The draft "Guidelines for the Establishment of Minors' Modes for the Mobile Internet" that China recently (in August 2023) released also attracted attention from around the world since it proposed limiting the amount of time that minors can spend on social media. There have been a flurry of bills introduced in the US to make the internet safer for kids in places including Utah, Arkansas, Texas, Maryland, Connecticut, and New York. Thus, the comments made by the Karnataka High Court Judge are neither novel nor exceptional. Is India going to adopt a paternalistic stance and deny access to the internet to children?
India does not have a specific law to safeguard children's online safety, while there are numerous, dispersed attempts. The most recent law, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, tackles the issue of children's data privacy and requires that the child's parent or legal guardian give their verifiable approval. This means that verifiable parental approval would need to be sought if a minor (someone under the age of 18) wanted to create a Facebook or Social Media account.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has established guidelines for child-targeted commercials through the year 2022 to guarantee that they don't mislead consumers, promote risky conduct, or misrepresent the health advantages of products. The Gaming Intermediaries Regulations (2023) require that age-appropriateness be used to classify digital information, and that in cases where the content is graded "A," a trustworthy age verification method and access control measures be put in place. Furthermore, all social media intermediaries are required by these regulations to take efforts to guarantee that the content they host, publish, and show is not detrimental to children.
As a result, social media intermediates in India are subject to strict regulation. They must abide by government banning and takedown orders, and if they don't, Section 79 of the Information Technology Act's safe harbor provisions are forfeited. A variety of techniques can be seen among these dispersed measures: 1) coercing the parent or guardian of the minor into understanding the child's online actions; and 2) imposing requirements on intermediaries and advertising firms to limit harm to children.
A youngster above the age of 13 can currently create a Google, Facebook, and Instagram account in India. The amount of time kids can spend on social media is unrestricted. There is no time limit on how much time a child can spend playing games. In stark contrast to this is China's paternalistic approach, where children under the age of eight, for example, are only permitted to use smart devices for 40 minutes daily and can only access content related to "elementary education, hobbies and interests, and liberal arts education"; after they turn eight, they are allowed to use them for 60 minutes per day and can access "entertainment content with positive guidance." China has set a severe three-hour weekly cap on kids playing video games in 2021, leading to a sharp 96% fall in gaming time and a 90% decrease in gaming revenue.
A federal judge halted California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), which requires particular data safeguards for minors using the internet and is scheduled to take effect in 2024, since it may have violated their right to free speech. In the US, there is a claim that laws that push for more stringent child data protection standards would lead to the collection of more sensitive data from all users, resulting in invasive data collection and limiting adult access to speech that is protected by the constitution.
Constitutional rights are not unrestricted in India and may be the target of justifiable limitations. I believe that restricting children's access to the internet in a paternalistic manner, as is done in China, will have a number of unforeseen effects. The internet would become safer for kids if more comprehensive methods were used to make it secure for all online users. Better educated participants on the demand and supply sides will result from the monitoring of data collection and processing, enforcement of algorithmic transparency, and raising awareness of the relationship between internet access and child safety. Data gathering procedures will always be improved by supporting high quality research on the behavioral effects of social media on children, funding initiatives by civil society to democratize the internet, and realizing the potential of open data. We can still go closer to the goal of a safe internet if combined with effective security protocols and a steadfast application of current regulations.
