Focus on the children, not the platform

Why in the News

Meta has settled a $171 billion case with several United States States over allegations about the effect of its apps on children’s mental health. The settlement requires daily usage limits and “nighttime blocks” for teenagers. It requires “enhanced age assurance measures” (checks intended to establish a user’s age before access is granted) to keep children off the apps. It also requires the depersonalisation of feeds, so a child is served random content rather than content matched to that child’s interests. The outcome is being read as a step towards holding platforms accountable. That framing places the platform at the centre of the problem rather than the child, and the two framings do not produce the same policy.

Why does a platform centric approach to child safety misfire?

1. The measures are difficult to enforce: An age gate assumes a child will not defeat it, while children are sophisticated and motivated users of technology who find ways around such checks.
2. It ignores what children need to be safe online: Poorly designed recommendation systems expose children to harmful content, and stripping personalisation replaces that risk with irrelevant or inappropriate material. It also makes it harder for educational and support services to reach the children who need them.
3. Online spaces are the only support some children have: Children experiencing neglect or abuse, LGBTQIA+ children and socially isolated children use platforms to find information, companionship or help. A child’s participation is not confined to one service, so a platform that becomes too restrictive simply loses them to platforms with weaker protections.
4. The offline environment is what pushes children online: In India screens fill a vacuum rather than displacing abundant offline opportunities, because many children have no access to safe public spaces or affordable recreational facilities.

What would a child centred approach ask for instead?

1. Equip the child, as is done in the physical world: Children are taught what not to share, how to respond to unsolicited contact, how to recognise manipulation, when to block or report someone, and when to seek help.
2. Treat digital literacy as the instrument, not the afterthought: Digital literacy and sensitisation are what change a child’s behaviour at the moment a technical control fails, and they receive far less policy attention than platform obligations.
3. Address the whole ecology of childhood: Responsibility sits across platforms, parents, schools, communities, public spaces and children themselves, so a measure aimed at one of the six leaves the other five untouched.

Why does the harder answer receive less policy attention?

1. A platform obligation is visible and countable: A regulator can order a control, verify that it shipped, and record compliance, none of which a curriculum or a public playground delivers on the same timescale.
2. India’s move so far is a recommendation, not a mandate: The 2026 Economic Survey called for a digital wellness curriculum in schools, and whether it is implemented widely and appropriately is untested.
3. The effective lever sits outside the regulator’s reach: Digital literacy runs through school systems and recreational space runs through municipalities, while enforcement powers sit with technology and data protection regulators.
4. The argument does not absolve platforms: Platform responsibility survives intact, and the contest is over which lever produces a safer child rather than over whether platforms owe anything at all.

Conclusion

Child online safety is presently measured by the number of controls a service ships. The better measure is what a child is able to do when a control fails, and the settlement model produces no information about that at all. The capability side of the problem belongs to schools, parents and municipalities. The enforcement side belongs to a technology regulator, and nobody owns the gap between the two.

Child Online Safety in India

1. What the field covers: The rules governing children’s access to online services, the data those services may collect about a child, and the content they may direct at one.
2. How India regulates it: Through due diligence obligations on intermediaries under technology law and consent rules under data protection law, rather than through a single children’s online safety statute.
3. Who counts as a child: Indian data protection law treats every person below 18 as a child, a higher threshold than the 13 year line used in United States children’s privacy law.

Laws and Rules Governing Child Online Safety

1. Information Technology Act, 2000, amended in 2008: The parent statute for offences committed through a computer resource, carrying Section 66D on cheating by impersonation and Section 69 on interception.
2. Section 67B separately punishes publishing or transmitting material depicting children in sexually explicit acts.
3. Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, amended in 2023: Impose due diligence, grievance redressal and content takedown obligations on intermediaries.
4. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, with the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025: Govern consent, data fiduciary duties, breach notification and the Data Protection Board of India.
5. Section 9 requires verifiable parental consent before a child’s personal data is processed, and bars tracking, behavioural monitoring and advertising targeted at children.
6. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012: Defines and punishes sexual offences against persons below 18, covers offences committed using electronic material, and makes reporting mandatory.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2024, GS3, 10 marks] Describe the context and salient features of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023”