We now live in a vastly changed world in which the Internet and social media dominate our lives – and for parents of children in vulnerable ages, like pre-teens, early teens and even late teens, knowing where one’s children are is not enough. They could well be in the next room, doing things – or being subjected to things – that may harm their hearts, minds and even bodies.

That explains why the Supreme Court of India has stepped in to wake up policymakers and lawmakers on the issue.

India may be waking up late, but it is quite clear that the time has come to monitor, regulate and probably police the use of social media by children and young adults. But that’s easier said than done. If not done properly, there could be a case of throwing the baby out with the proverbial bathwater. After all, social media can teach things to kids as well --- as it does to me.  There’s more stuff to learn from Instagram than I could sense a decade ago: from etiquette to neuroscience, I learn a lot from social media. 

Why should children be spared the joys when one moves to insulate them from the downside risks? 

Need For Regulations

But there is a flip side that has a laundry list of troubles brewing that clearly invites regulation or more. Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and the UAE are among the early movers to check social media use by young ones, and the UK and the EU are soon set to join the ranks.

Taking a technical view, Supreme Court judges have said that minors are legally unqualified to enter contracts under Indian law – which is to say they cannot become subscribers or members of social media services. The judges are targeting social media platforms like X that need “accounts”.

Moving quickly on the court’s observations against using US laws to fashion Indian rules, the Union government says it plans to amend the Information Technology rules to restrict children under 18 from opening social media accounts. The idea is to make it mandatory for intermediaries (platforms like Facebook-owner Meta, X (Twitter), etc to prevent minors from registering on these platforms.

However, this should not be a mechanical adjustment of laws and rules.  Here’s where we need smart regulatory filters, not a Great Wall of India against smart kids. As a guiding principle, one can simply go back to the world of cinema, in which movies have been certified as X (sexual content), A (adult), PG (parental guidance), and U (Universal). Looking at the way “digital arrest” scams have robbed even senior citizens online, one wonders if some of the social media controls or regulations should extend to certain categories of adults as well.

The Moral Imperative

Shifting the onus of social media controls on US-based platforms appears more tricky in the face of the just-inked accord between US President Donald Trump and technology giants with a focus on “super intelligence” – the new name he has conferred on Artificial Intelligence (AI). By making Big Tech “morally bound” on some issues, he may be targeting Chinese-made AI products, but if recent experience is any indication, anything can become an excuse for trade barriers or restrictions. 

Advertising Revenue

Social media platforms hog a huge chunk of total advertising revenue from digital media, which was estimated at nearly ₹95,000 crore in 2025 of the total advertising revenue of ₹150,000 crore. Google India (which includes YouTube) earned revenues of more than ₹34,700 crore in the fiscal year 2024-25, while Meta India (including Facebook and Instagram) earned an estimated ₹28,000 crore.

With figures like that in play, Indian policymakers should glide carefully to avoid trade pushbacks and at the same time go above and beyond mechanical obedience to the Supreme Court. 

Perhaps a proactive government committee can consider all issues at stake.

There is a definite cause for concern over issues like online addictions, endless scrolling that wastes learning time, cyberbullying that hurts teenage minds, and consumption of harmful content covering everything from child abuse and pornography to suicides and wars. As can be expected, governments of various countries have initiated or implemented regulatory steps in line with their perceptions of vulnerability.

Global Picture

As a pioneer, Australia last year imposed a nationwide ban on children under 16 holding accounts on platforms like the Chinese TikTok (already banned in India for nationalistic reasons), besides Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, with a scope for hefty fines on technology platforms for violations. Indonesia has shifted the onus of age verification on technology platform companies. Turkey has crafted a ban on under-15 kids while the United Kingdom plans an under-16 ban from next year.

These seem superficial in a context where social media need not necessarily be a bad thing. Brazil and the European Union seem to have better-thought-out policies.  Last March, Brazil adopted a guardian-linked model under what is called the Digital Statute of Children and Adolescents. The European Union recently introduced a new law still in the works called the EU KIDS Act, where KIDS stands for “Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy”

That may age well both as an acronym and a law. The planned law classifies teenagers to move them from outright bans to parentally guided use of social media and onwards to a legal “safety by design” usage that would make platforms accountable for curbing non-stop scrolling, profiling-based recommendation of content, and contact with strangers.

Safety By Design

The safety-by-design aspect is worth emulating for India. AI, often in the news for bad content, can in fact be used to police social media usage.

There are rights activists protesting against too many restrictions, as well as Gen Z youths who want a say in how laws are made and enforced. One Italian youngster on human rights organisation Amnesty International’s website says to would-be regulators: “They need to be accountable and they have to do this with young people, not for young people. Put young people in positions of leadership to tell them how to design these digital platforms. You cannot design something if you don’t know what the target wants.”

That may be a good idea, as safety by design is best done with real people and software apps working together towards a pragmatic legal design.

The Supreme Court’s observations took me back to the early days of the Internet, when Net Nanny emerged as a pioneering software app to monitor kids. It has now evolved to enable control of social media usage by blocking specific apps, filtering harmful content in real time, and setting daily limits on screen time.

There are other apps like Qustodio, which offers cross-platform control like a watchful lighthouse, the Norton Family, which works across devices on a single dashboard view, and Bark, which smartly uses AI to scan texts, emails, and platforms to police cyberbullying, grooming, and signs of mental depression.

The Way Forward

The interesting thing is that one slice of technology can often solve or mitigate problems created by another technology. The parentally helpful radio jockey may be out of fashion in the age of Spotify, but there can be pieces of software doing much more.

What we need is a pervasive government-backed use of safety software working in tandem with law and policy goals. Parents and youths will still have a role to play. That has not changed.

(The writer is a senior journalist covering a diverse range of subjects, including economy, technology, and politics. Views expressed are personal.)