More Stories

Informist, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – The Madras High Court has asked the Centre to explore the possibility of coming up with an Australia-like law to ban social media for children below 16 years of age. Till such legislation is passed, the authorities shall accelerate their awareness campaign on the menace of obnoxious pornographic material accessible to children more effectively and shall take the message to the vulnerable group through all available media, said the court. "We hope that the commission both at state and in central will draw an action plan in this aspect and implement the same in letter and spirit," said the high court.

 

The court was hearing a public interest litigation by S. Vijayakumar on the issue of pornographic content available in virtual source and easily accessible to young children. The petitioner sought a direction to the authorities to implement the direction from the Centre to internet service providers to give a "parental window" or parental control service and also to create awareness among children by authorities.

 

The high court said there must be control at the user end regarding access to pornographic material, which can be achieved only if there is a parent control application available in the device. For this purpose, the end users should compulsory be made aware about the menace of child pornography and measures to prevent it, it said. Ultimately, it is the individual's choice and right to access such obnoxious material or to avoid it, said the court. As far as children are concerned, the vulnerability is high, so the parents' responsibility is higher, it added.

 

The high court noted that a similar situation came before the Supreme Court in 2024, wherein it made suggestions to the Centre and other stakeholders, in respect of the rights of victims under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. Internet service providers are governed by separate statute and the counsel appearing for some of these providers state 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 objectionable websites are brought to their notice, they are blocked, the court noted.

Australia enacted a world-first ban on Dec. 10, prohibiting social media access for children under 16 years, targeting platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube to curb exposure to harmful content. Companies face fines for failing to prevent kids from having accounts. Petitions have also been filed in the the Australian High Court challenging the country's social media ban for under-16 kids for violating the constitutional right to political communication.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Tanima Banerjee

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd. by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt. Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.