Should kids be off social media?

• Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has announced a minimum age for children to use social media platforms.
• The debate is driven by parent groups and the government’s desire to ensure children’s safety online.
• The government is also politically motivated due to the upcoming federal election and Meta’s decision to stop paying money to news agencies.
• The ban may not provide parents with safer spaces for their children and less pressure on tech companies to design platforms for them.
• The implementation of age limits is unclear, with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, stating children can access platforms only after parental consent.
• The issue is exacerbated by low digital literacy in India, diverse languages, and shared device usage.
• Parents are urged to guide children on safe online usage, as 80% of children help their parents navigate online platforms.
• The media environment often reports only extreme cases of children experiencing significant harm, which does not include the positives of digital engagements.
• Parents need to be given strong advice on how to keep their children safe online and how to maximize the value of being online.

Education System’s Role in Digital Education in India
• The education system in India is increasingly incorporating digital skills into curriculum, but there is a need for a balance between tech and physical activities.
• The core curriculum in India lacks lessons on online resilience and safety, which children perceive as double standards.

Parenting and Technology Use
• Children perceive double standards in the use of technology, with parents having one set of rules for their children and another for themselves.
• Parents can regulate their own use of platforms to protect their children’s privacy.

Law on ‘Sharenting’
• In India, there is no discussion on the law on’sharenting’, where parents publicly share sensitive content about their children on internet platforms.
• Law enforcement agencies like the Assam Police warn parents against’sharenting’.

Child Influencers and Privacy Concerns
• The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has guidelines for child and adolescent participation in the entertainment industry, but some accounts get flagged due to perceived exploitation.
• In France, if a child under 16 is an influencer and earns an income, their parents cannot access that income until the child turns 16.

Designing Optimal Online Environments
• There is a need to shift from compliance to designing optimal environments for children online.
• The debate is on age assurance technologies and age verification, and the threshold of tolerance for identity verification.

Banning Digital Space
• Technology can be used for both good and bad, making it difficult to ban something in the digital space.
• Models from the U.K., such as the Age-Appropriate Design Code, have made changes to ensure children have better default settings and exposure to minimum risk.
• More transparency is needed around design changes and the changes seen in children’s behavior after these changes.