Indian States Consider Australia-Style Ban on Social Media for Children

India may soon become a significant testing ground for age-based restrictions on social media, as several states examine whether to follow Australia’s approach to limiting children’s access to online platforms amid a broader global regulatory push.

The effort is gaining momentum at the state level, with Goa emerging as the latest to explore whether social media use should be prohibited for children under 16. “Australia has introduced a law that enforces a ban on social media for children below the age of 16,” Goa’s IT minister Rohan Khaunte said this week. “Our department has already reviewed those documents. We are studying them and, if feasible, may implement a similar ban on social media usage for children under 16.”

Goa is not alone. The southern state of Andhra Pradesh is also considering a similar path. Earlier this month, the state’s IT and education minister, Nara Lokesh, indicated that officials were reviewing Australia’s legislation closely. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Lokesh said, “I believe we need to create a strong legal enactment.”

The Andhra Pradesh government has already formed a ministerial committee to assess whether restrictions or an outright ban on minors’ access to social media platforms would be legally and practically workable. The panel, chaired by Lokesh, includes several senior cabinet ministers and is tasked with examining the issue in detail.

Beyond these two states, the debate has reached the judiciary. In December, the Madras High Court urged India’s federal government to consider Australia-style restrictions, underscoring how concerns over children’s online safety are increasingly shaping regulatory discussions outside of legislatures.

Any attempt to curb children’s access to social media in India would have far-reaching consequences for global technology companies, which see the country as a crucial growth market. Official estimates place India’s internet user base at more than 1 billion, with a significant portion coming online at a young age. This makes India central to the user growth and advertising strategies of major platforms such as Meta, Google, and X.

Meta said it shares lawmakers’ objective of fostering “safe, positive online experiences for young people.” Still, she argued that parents, not governments, should decide which apps their teenagers are allowed to use. “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 Meta spokesperson said.

Australia’s under-16 social media ban, passed under the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, was approved by parliament in November 2024 and is set to take effect in December 2025. Even before implementation, the law has highlighted enforcement challenges for platforms. Last year, Meta began notifying Australian teenagers that their accounts would be shut down, illustrating the difficulty of accurately verifying users’ ages when people may not be truthful during sign-up.

The Australian law applies to platforms such as Twitch but exempts others, including Pinterest, Discord, GitHub, Roblox, and Steam. It has also reignited concerns about digital age-verification systems, which critics say pose privacy and security risks because they require sensitive personal data.

Australia’s move is being closely watched well beyond India. Governments in countries including Denmark, France, and Spain, as well as Indonesia and Malaysia, are studying similar restrictions.

Kazim Rizvi, founding director of New Delhi–based think tank The Dialogue, said that while pressure to regulate children’s social media use is mounting, internet governance in India falls under federal jurisdiction. As a result, individual states cannot amend national laws such as the Information Technology Act or the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. Rizvi noted that states like Andhra Pradesh may therefore need backing from the central government to achieve guaranteed outcomes.

Aprajita Rana, a partner at law firm AZB & Partners, echoed those concerns, cautioning that an Australia-style ban would be unprecedented in a market as large as India’s. She warned that sweeping restrictions could drive children away from regulated platforms and into monitored online spaces, potentially undermining the very safety objectives policymakers aim to achieve.

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, passed in August 2023, already includes safeguards for children’s data. The law requires verifiable parental consent before processing personal data of individuals under 18 and prohibits tracking, behavioural monitoring, and targeted advertising aimed at minors. However, the detailed rules tooperationalisee these provisions are being rolled out gradually through 2027, giving platforms time to put the necessary protections in place.

Google, Snap, and X did not respond to requests for comment, and India’s IT ministry also did not respond when contacted.