Madras High Court suggests Australia like ban on social media for children

Background

A public interest litigation was filed in 2018 by S Vijayakumar, a resident of Madurai, who expressed concern over easy availability and accessibility of pornographic content to young children.

The PIL urged the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Tamil Nadu Commission for Protection of Child Rights, to invoke power vested with them and direct the internet service providers a “parental window system” and create awareness among the people.

The Madras High Court has suggested Australia like ban for children back home. Here’s an infographic on key points from its order in a nutshell. (Image generated using AI)

The plea also sought directions to internet service providers (ISPs) to offer parental control or a “parental window” facility to users.

Recently, Australia enacted a law under which, social media companies are required to prevent children under 16 from creating or holding accounts on their platforms, failing which they face substantial penalties.

However, the legislation does not penalise children or their parents.

Arguments

Counsel for the petitioner referred to the recent legislation passed by the Australian government prohibiting use of the internet by children below the age of 16 years and suggested that Centre could also enact similar legislation.

Counsel for the internet service provider companies submitted before the court that they are governed by separate law.

They informed the court that periodically the intermediaries review the situation and pursuant to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, necessary actions are taken whenever it is brought to the notice of the ISP concerned regarding objectionable websites, the said websites are blocked.

Observations

The court expressed concern that the child rights commissions were not adequately performing their statutory duties under the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.

“The Commission has a statutory duty and responsibility to spread child right literacy among various sections of the Society and promote awareness of the safeguards available for protection of these rights. No doubt, certain awareness campaigns go around focusing children at schools. However, the said campaign is not adequate,” the bench said.

The court said that the counter-affidavits filed by the authorities concerned have not impressed the court that they are adequately discharging their responsibilities as mandated under the provisions of the Act.

The court, however, refrained from issuing broad directions or guidelines, noting that the Supreme Court had, in a similar matter last year, already made suggestions to the Centre and other stakeholders concerning the rights of victims of child sexual abuse.

Taking note that websites hosting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) continue to remain accessible and active, underscoring the need for effective controls at the user end, the court said that such control could be achieved only if parental control applications are available on devices used by children.

“Compulsorily for the said purpose, the end users should be made aware about the menace of child pornography and measures to prevent it. Ultimately, it is the individual choice and right to access such obnoxious material or to avoid it. As far as children are concerned, the vulnerability is high, so the parents’ responsibility is higher,” the bench said.