India’s debate over children’s digital safety has reached a critical turning point. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have proposed blanket social media bans for teenagers, while the Union government reportedly opts for a graded approach ~ a separate law, expected in the monsoon session, enforcing restrictions across varying age groups with time-based limits and mandatory parental consent. This marks a genuine awakening. However, restricting social media alone addresses only a fraction of the problem; it merely plugs one leak in a sinking ship.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in 2021, issued General Comment No. 25 directing governments to protect children from online violence, sexual exploitation, harassment, and gambling. Effective legislation must regulate four other major threats beyond social media: exposure to unrestricted adult pornography, graphic violent content, addictive short-video quicksands, and predatory gaming-betting hybrids. If expanded thoughtfully, the Centre’s proposed legislation can become a historic ‘State Shield’ for Indian families. Adult pornography is viewed by 97 per cent of boys and 78 per cent of girls aged 12-18, according to the ‘Unprotected From Porn’ report (Carroll et al., 2025). In India, a LocalCircles survey found one in two parents had seen their children exposed to inappropriate content online.
Texas enacted law on ‘Liability for Allowing Minors to Access Pornographic Material’ (H. B. 1181) in 2023 to address the concern that the internet makes too accessible to minors “hardcore pornographic content,” depicting “sexual violence, incest, physical aggression, sexual assault,” which has harmful “developmental effects on the brain,” and leads to “risky sexual behaviors.” It requires pornographic websites to verify ages with a quick photograph or video or face penalties up to $250,000. The adult privacy vs. child safety debate was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton (2025) by establishing that the state’s “compelling interest in protecting minors from physical and psychological harms” outweighs the adults’ right to privacy.
The Court ruled that requiring age verification is merely an “incidental burden” because it “does not prohibit adults from viewing sexually explicit content; it merely requires them to verify their age before doing so.” The UK’s Children’s Code and Online Safety Act 2023 together require digital services to proactively mitigate harms – such as addictive algorithms and predatory content ~ before they reach the child, with penalties of up to 10 per cent of global turnover. As a result, traffic to major pornography sites dropped by as much as 77 per cent. Graphic violent content is the second pillar. Australia’s Online Safety Codes require platforms to use proactive technologies to identify and remove ‘Class 1’ material (child sexual abuse, pro-terrorist content) and ‘Class 2’ material (graphic violence and high-impact pornography) even before it is viewed.
In contrast, Section 79 of India’s Information Technology Act, as interpreted in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, requires platforms to act after receiving ‘actual knowledge’ through court orders. Platforms avoid proactive monitoring for fear that such diligence could reclassify them as ‘editors,’ thereby stripping them of safe harbour and exposing them to legal liability for all user-generated content. India can address this by introducing a ‘Good Samaritan’ protection clause, similar to Article 7 of the EU’s Digital Services Act to protect platforms from liability even when they voluntarily remove harmful content. Algorithmic short-video quicksands create addiction through 15-to-60-second auto-playing clips delivered through infinite vertical scroll.
Young brains crave constant novelty and spiking dopamine. Law must regulate platform architecture itself: disabling infinite scroll for minor accounts, restricting autoplay and imposing session-time limits. In the Los Angeles multidistrict litigation, a teenage girl, KGM, is now suing Meta and Google, arguing that Instagram and YouTube were intentionally engineered to hook young users. Unlike past suits that targeted harmful user-generated content ~ where platforms have strong defence of immunity ~ this trial focuses on product design itself: framing infinite scroll and autoplay as defective, addictive architecture that caused depression and suicidal ideation. Gaming-betting hybrids are the fourth pillar.
India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025 is silent on child-protection provisions. Platforms must integrate mandatory ‘circuit breakers’ – cooling-off periods and spending caps on in-app purchases. These safeguards must apply not only to online platforms but also to downloadable games that can be played offline. India currently implements the ‘parental consent’ model under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, where parents ~ often under social or peer pressure ~ may end up consenting to their child’s use of virtually any app. Australia has shifted the responsibility to corporations through the innovative Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, which mandates that social media platforms themselves block access for children under 16, with penalties of up to AUD 49.5 million for non-compliance. Legislation alone, however, cannot build resilient children ~ schools, families, and communities must act. The Economic Survey 2025-26 warned that digital addiction is eroding academic performance, recommending basic phones and education-only tablets. UNESCO’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report urges countries to separate distracting “smart technology” from “educational technology.” At least 79 countries now restrict smartphones in schools.
Many UK schools now recommend basic ‘dumbphones.’ China has implemented a ‘Minor Mode’ built into phone hardware, blocking internet access between 10 PM and 6 AM. Digital hygiene curriculum in schools from Class 5 onwards must teach children to protect privacy, and maintain healthy digital habits. Parents must also be trained with a focus on modelling the behaviour they want to see – if parents are always scrolling, children will be too. Cities can find inspiration in villages. ‘Digital Detox Siren’, popularized by villages like Mohityanche Vadgaon, uses a daily community-wide siren at 7 p.m. to mandate a 90-minute interval when children switch off mobiles and televisions to prioritize family bonding and study. Finally, digital addiction must be recognized as a public-health challenge.
NIMHANS, Bengaluru runs ‘Service for Healthy Use of Technology’ (SHUT) Clinic for technology addiction; AIIMS, New Delhi has established ‘Center for Advanced Research and Advocacy in Behavioral Addiction’ (CAR-AB) programme for early detection of behavioral dependencies in children; and the national Tele-MANAS helpline (14416) provides mental-health counseling. These efforts must be scaled into district-level digital de-addiction centers in every district, along with an exclusive national digital-safety helpline for families. This is a battle between families and multimillion-dollar digital platforms. Parents cannot fight it alone; the nation now looks to Parliament to act.
(The writer is a transparency and equality advocate and founder member, 51ABI Foundation)