Banning social media for children

Australia experience

Australia has passed a law restricting the use of social media by children under 16. Platforms must incorporate age verification into their systems when creating accounts, however, the law does not require such verification.

Texas experience (USA)

In the state of Texas, a bill proposes to set the age threshold for accessing social media at 18 years of age. However, in Texas, the requirement to implement an age verification method must be commercially reasonable.

Texas has proposed a rule that a request to delete an existing account can be made by a parent or guardian of a child, in which case the platform would need to verify that there is a relationship between the people.

Experience of China

China has issued guidelines for mobile device, app and app-hosting platform providers on creating a juvenile mode (under 18). Developers should ensure that it is easy to enter and exit the juvenile mode on devices or platforms and provide communication between devices on the transition from the modes.

The children's regimen must include:

1) Daily limit of device, app usage (e.g., no more than 1 hour per day for children under 16).

2) Content moderation requirements restriction of content dangerous for children's psyche or encouraging deviant behavior.

3) Technical settings that should be considered during operation (e.g., blocking unfamiliar users, settings to reduce the visibility of information about children).

Russia’s experience

In Russia, the law “On the Protection of Children from Harmful Information” does not provide any restrictions on the use of social networks. The law also does not contain even more important measures against cyberbullying, tracking children through geolocation (disabling geolocation for children's social network accounts), etc.

From the monitoring issue No. 11, November 2024. Download the full issue (PDF) · issue page at the Gaidar Institute