Bengaluru, Sept 19, 2023: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday suggested to the central government to consider setting a minimum age for using social media.
A bench of Justices G Narender and Vijaykumar A Patil made the suggestion while dwelling upon the dangers of exposing children to social media.
The remark came during the hearing in the appeal by X (formerly Twitter) in a case concerning the Centre’s orders to block certain tweets and accounts in 2021 and 2022.
During the hearing, Justice Narendar orally said, “Government should consider bringing in an age limit for the use of social media. When a user registers, he will have to give some material, just like in online gaming where a person not having Aadhar etc. cannot join. Why don’t you extend it here also? It will be a boon".
Justice Narender pointed out, "Today, school-going children are so addicted to it. I think there should be an age limit, such as in the Excise rules"."Children may be 17 or 18, but do they have the maturity to judge what is or is not in the interest of the nation? Not only on social media, even on the internet, things should be removed, it corrupts the mind", he added.