Regulating Childhood

*Ishika Agarwal

Introduction 

Childhood is no longer shaped by families, schools, books, playgrounds or communities. After Covid-19 hit the world, it is increasingly mediated by the internet, social media and algorithms. In February 2026, the death of three minor girls in Ghaziabad sparked an urgent policy debate. The preliminary findings pointed towards a troubling mix of suicide, digital addiction, and parental conflict. The uncomfortable question raised by this tragedy is: ‘What does childhood look like to an algorithm-driven world?’ 

India is home to one of the largest youth populations, largest social media market with 750 million devices and over a billion internet users. In this expanding digital ecosystem, children are not merely participants rather they are among its most valuable targets. Many global studies link excessive social media engagement among adolescents with anxiety, depression, self-harm, distorted body images and reduced attention span. However, these findings are deeply rooted in Western contexts, leaving a wide gap in robust, long-term data on how these dynamics affect Indian children. In India, social media use is shaped by shared devices, low parental literacy, deep socio-economic divide etc. The ultimate problem is not the access to the social media platform, but the design to capture and shape behaviour. 

Against this backdrop, Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, 2024 represents one of the most assertive regulatory responses. The Australian law shifts responsibility to the platforms directing them to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent those under 16 from accessing their services, with the threat of steep financial penalties for non-compliance. At the same time, it aims to balance privacy concerns by limiting the use of government identification, leaving enforcement to be worked out through delegated rules. 

This momentum is not just confined to Australia. Across Europe, countries such as Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece and Germany are similarly weighing regulatory interventions marking a broader shift towards restrictions and age-based restriction on platform liability as a default regulatory tool. 

This article argues that India can no longer rely on blanket bans or fragmented framework. It must move towards a coherent legal framework that recognizes the structural risk and design of these platforms. Without such intervention, any regulatory approach will remain inadequate. 

India’s Response

In India, the policy response has followed a familiar path. Rising concerns have quickly transformed into a call for stricter regulation, which quietly begins with the proposal of new laws with the aim to protect children from the ‘NEW BIG TOBACCO’. The response followed is predictable and has been centered on age gating, control access, parental control, limits on usage and even outright blanket bans. The proposed SHIELD Bill in Lok Sabha – Safeguarding Healthy Environments for Little Digital Natives Bill, 2025 is pending and seeks to regulate children’s access to social media, restricting usage below the age of 13. 

At state level, this impulse escalates further. Karnataka has indicated a potential ban on social media for those under the age of 16, while Andhra Pradesh has proposed prohibiting access below 13 and regulating it up to 16. While such measures are politically intuitive, they risk creating a fragmented regulatory landscape without even enforcement. Moreover, they reflect a deeper misdiagnosis and rests on a flawed understanding of the problem. As the Chief Economic Advisor rightly pointed out, the issue is not the children themselves but the structure of the platforms they engage with, systems that are by design optimized to capture attention and maximise engagement. But this instinct raises a deeper concern. 

Control over Concern?

What begins as a concern for children’s well-being has steadily morphed into a politics of control. The language of protection, safety, regulation and safeguards quickly erases the line between restriction and prevention and points towards surveillance and prohibition instead. Age thresholds become blunt tools while attempting to solve what is, at its core, a far more complex behavioral and technological problem. The appeal of such measures is obvious. They are visible, structural, politically legible but fail to signal any solid action. A ban signals actions and an age gate suggests responsibility, whereas both lies on a very simple assumption that the ‘access is the problem and denial is the solution’.

In reality, children do not simply use social media, they inhabit the digital ecosystem, which is designed to retain attention, maximise engagement through structural architectural tools like the infinite scrolls, algorithmic feedback loops, recommendation systems etc. This is where the tobacco analogy begins to falter. Unlike tobacco, which is harmful by consumption alone, social media operates through design, behavioral nudges, feedback loops and prolonged engagement. Treating it as a substance to be restricted overlooks its nature as an environment to be governed. 

Moreover, the enforcement itself remains deeply problematic. Age verification without intrusive data collection is difficult to implement at scale. If bans are imposed without any reliable age verification mechanism, they are unlikely to hold, thus children can easily bypass such restrictions by misrepresenting their age, rendering the entire framework largely symbolic. 

However, documentary verification raises a more serious concern. Linking access of social media platforms to government identifications, seems simple but it risks normalizing surveillance at an early age. The practice may involve children in systems of routine data collection and tracking. The concern then is not about privacy but the kind of digital citizenship being shaped. A narrow focus on the privacy would overlook platform design shapes individual behavior, attention and vulnerability among the adolescents. 

India’s Existing Legal Framework 

India’s legal framework does engage with children’s online safety, but only in a fragmented manner. The Information Technology Act, 2000, read with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, places due diligence obligations on intermediaries, obligating them to take down unlawful or harmful content and the establishment of grievance redressal mechanism. However, the focus remains on content moderation. The structure and design of the platform that controls the user behaviour remain out of the purview. 

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, children are recognized as a separate category. The Act places a stricter control on how their data is managed and requires parental consent for processing children’s data and places a greater responsibility on data fiduciaries. This is an attempt to prevent tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising. While its effectiveness depends on how these rules are implemented and whether ‘consent’ as a subject still holds a place in the Indian digital ecosystem. 

Other laws address specific harms. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 addresses online sexual exploitation and abuse, a criminal law approach towards protecting children in digital space. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 provides a broader child welfare-oriented framework, that can extend to digital contexts. Nevertheless, these remain issue specific responses. 

A deep gap still persists in the regulatory framework. These laws operate in isolation, each dealing with specific harm like data misuse, explicit content, or child welfare. While the main issue lies with the engagement of the users with the design and structure of these social media platforms. India has the contours of a child protection regime, but a coherent approach to the digital environments our children grow up in is missing. 

Rethinking The Regulatory Lens

The challenge lies not in access but in the architecture of digital platforms. The current instinct to restrict, verify or ban treats children as the problem to be managed. A more coherent approach would instead interrogate the environments they are placed in. This calls for a move from user-centric controls to platform-centric accountability. Rather than asking how to keep children out, regulation must ask what obligations platforms owe to children who are, inevitably, already inside. This is where the focus shifts. 

Design features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, algorithmic amplification and engagement-driven recommendations are not neutral tools; they are behavioural nudges that shape attention span. The global approach offers a gradual shift towards ‘safety by design’ embedding safeguards within the architecture of platforms rather than layering them externally with restrictions. The platforms can work on limiting addictive features for young users, ensuring transparency in the recommendation system, and restricting algorithmic amplification.

The battle to safeguard the teenagers of the country will not be an easy one. The reality of our country’s digital ecosystem is characterised by shared devices, uneven digital literacy and deep socio-economic diversity. A rigid compliance model may either fail in enforcement or disproportionately burden certain groups while leaving underlying harms as they are. What is required, then, is a reframing. The debate must move beyond the binary of freedom versus restriction, and towards responsibility. Not of the child, but of the system. Until regulation engages with how platforms are designed to capture and retain attention, attempts at protection will remain partial, reactive and ultimately insufficient.

Conclusion

The urgency to respond to the changing nature of childhood in a digital age is undeniable. Therefore, regulation must be carefully tailored. Any broad restriction, particularly that limits access or expression without addressing platform’s design would prove to be fatal. A regulatory strategy based on prohibitions, age restrictions or invasive verification runs the risk. While the escalating worries about autonomy, privacy, and governmental control still remain. The question is not whether to regulate, but how to do so effectively. Broad, one-size-fit-all restrictions that overlooks how the platforms are designed won’t do the work. The only solution is to address the systems that children live in, not to restrict them. When a platform’s design influences vulnerability and behavior among its users, it cannot be dismissed without consideration. The emphasis must shift to a safer design for young users. The question is no longer whether children should be online, but whether the system they inhabit will be held accountable.

**Ishika Agarwal is a second-year law student at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.

**Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily align with the views of the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.