Karnataka wants to ban U-16s from social media; industry, experts sceptical

New Delhi: Industry stakeholders and policy experts have reacted with scepticism over Karnataka’s proposal to ban social media use for youngsters under 16 years of age, questioning both the legality and the practicality of enforcing such a restriction in one state of India.Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah unveiled the proposal along with the state’s budget for FY27 on Friday, but did not share details.Lawyers and policymakers Mint spoke with said such a state-level demographic-specific ban could require intrusive age-verification systems and may be impractical, since many children access social media through adults’ devices and accounts.Further, such a ban may also clash with the Centre’s data-privacy framework, and go against the principles of minimal data sharing put forth in the Digital Personal Data Privacy (DPDP) Act that was notified last year.“Governments considering bans should be careful not to push teens toward less safe, unregulated sites, or logged-out experiences that bypass important protections—like the default safeguards we offer in Instagram’s ‘teen accounts’,” a spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc said in response to Mint’s queries.“We’ll comply with social media bans where they are enforced, but with teens using nearly 40 apps every week, targeting a handful of companies won’t keep them safe.

Bans should apply equally across the many apps teens use,” the spokesperson added.A set of queries sent to Priyank Kharge, the state’s IT minister, did not immediately receive responses.Notably, India provides the biggest user base for Meta Platforms’ popular social media apps Facebook (403 million monthly active users or MAUs), Instagram (350 million) and WhatsApp (532 million), as per third-party statistics