Authors: Aparajita Bharti & Sidharth Deb
Published: 6th January, 2025 in The Economic Times

In an unprecedented move, Australia in its effort to protect children from online harms amended its Online Safety Act to prohibit access to social media platforms for those under the age of 16.  Last week, this was a trending topic in many Indian parent communities with some arguing that India should perhaps consider a similar policy. However, it is likely that well-meaning parents have not considered unintended consequences of such a move.

Bans are the bluntest instruments in public policy. Within the Australian establishment itself, Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, National Children’s Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner have all argued that this will not effectively protect children online and cuts them off from essential resources and communities. Notwithstanding these concerns, India’s sociocultural dynamics, stretched state capacity and the opportunity to grow through digital transformation further complicate the situation.

Limitations in Australia’s Approach

The Australian law introduces the concept of age-restricted social media platforms” defined as those that solely or have significant characteristics of enabling social interactions. This vague classification has been designed to facilitate exemptions for gaming, messaging, health and education apps, among others acknowledging the need to retain teens’ access to the internet. However, this approach fails to align with the shape shifting qualities of digital services and children’s rapid ability to adapt. Many ‘messaging’, ‘streaming’ and ‘gaming’ apps increasingly exhibit characteristics affiliated with social media such as community interactions and user statuses. Children are likely to find other alternatives to banned platforms to communicate with their peers and others, but now with parents having a false sense of security about their children’s safety. A greater risk is that adults will find out much later when lesser known apps disguised as “non-social media” will fill this void akin to when unsafe spurious liquor proliferates in areas of prohibition.

Second, as argued by Carly Kind– Australia’s Privacy Commissioner– the legislation will create an obligation for age-restricted services to collect sensitive information of all users for age assessments causing an increase in data security and privacy risks. Recognising these concerns, the Australian law itself does not allow companies to use government ID systems for age verification, instead it mentions that platforms must take “reasonable steps” towards compliance. These undefined, reasonable steps’ taken by each platform will be benchmarked against detailed age assurance trials that Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner will undertake by September 2025. Perhaps recognising these uncertainties and the limitations of age assurance technologies the law has a mandatory performance review within two years of implementation.

Third, the Australian Senate committee received representations on how social media improves accessibility for children with disabilities and peer support and solidarity for those facing marginalisation due to their gender, sexuality, cultural or other identities. Lack of such access can lead to social isolation and encourages riskier behaviors. Thus, a decision to ban young people from these platforms is riddled with multifaceted risks.

Indian Considerations and Tradeoffs

Now let’s come to India. Indian parents’ concerns typically include excessive screen time, access to inappropriate content, unsafe contact by strangers, pressure to conform, etc. These are all legitimate concerns but we need nuanced solutions. First, norms around parenting and children’s autonomy differ across cultures. While Australia has seen debate over mobile phone usage in schools, with no outright bans until 2023, Indian school boards across states have been proactive in imposing strict limitations on device access in schools. Second, outside metros, children usually share devices with their families. Therefore, children’s access to social media is often in fact on mixed-use phones through an adult account. A ban on social media for teens in India would struggle to account for this complexity. Third, in low digital literacy households, children help their parents navigate the internet. Often, their family’s access to the digital economy is tied to children’s familiarity and access to digital platforms.

Despite these complexities, discussions around children’s safety online are a wake up call. Regulatory vacuums and ambiguities become a hotbed for bad policy ideas like the Australian legislation that emerged in an emotive political environment. We need interventions that balance children’s continued access to digital services while addressing these concerns.

A middle path could be to incentivise and provide concrete guidance to platforms on safer design for children through ‘child safety codes’. Inspiration can be drawn from age appropriate platform design codes (AADC) in the UK and California. These codes identify common platform design principles around children’s best interests, age appropriateness, data processing, default safety settings, and parental controls. A May 2024 report observed that the implementation of UK’s AADC triggered several positive platform design changes like defaults settings and parental oversight features to make children’s online experience safer. The Indian government should facilitate large-scale surveys, and consultations with organisations working with children and the industry to have a better understanding of unique challenges faced by Indian children and design a code to define platform responsibility.

Apart from regulation, the education system needs to re-think its increasing dependence on devices that makes it difficult for parents to supervise their children’s activities online. We need to invest resources in building children’s own resilience and wisdom in navigating the internet safely by adding these topics in the curriculum.

There is no doubt that parents across the world are struggling to reach a fine balance with their children around internet access. However, policy interventions should be tailored to help parents achieve their goals instead of lulling them into a false sense of security. We fear that Australia’s social media ban will exactly do that.

Aparajita is the Founding Partner and Sidharth is an Associate Director at The Quantum Hub (TQH) – a public policy firm