IT Rules primarily regulate illegal content and intermediary due diligence and they do not impose a meaningful safety-by-design obligation on recommendation systems
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New Delhi, August 27: Meta’s $17-billion US settlement over allegations of social media addiction among teenagers has put the spotlight on India’s relatively weaker safeguards against addictive platform design and algorithmic recommendations targeting children, experts said on Thursday. While the company has agreed to introduce sweeping child-safety measures on Facebook and Instagram in the US, experts said India should seek similar protections for children.
Government sources said: “Any foreign intermediary company has to follow the law of the land and there are enough mechanisms to protect our children.” However, analysts pointed out that India’s regulatory framework still has significant gaps, particularly around the design of social media platforms and recommendation systems.
For instance, IT Rules primarily regulate illegal content and intermediary due diligence and they do not impose a meaningful safety-by-design obligation on recommendation systems, said Apar Gupta, Founder Director, Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said.
Speaking to businessline, he said Consumer law and the 2023 Dark Patterns Guidelines may reach deceptive interface design, but they also have not yet become an effective regulatory framework for addictive social-media architecture.
Guardrails
“India is not entirely without law and Section 9 of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act prohibits processing likely to harm a child’s well being, as well as behavioural monitoring directed at children. However, Section 9 does not come into force until May 13, 2027, because the government gave it an 18-month implementation period,” Gupta said.
On asked about India not having any guardrails apart from some parental controls over the devices to protect children, Gupta noted that the answer cannot simply be “ban children” or demand Aadhaar and facial scans from every user.
“Child safety regulation itself can become a serious privacy problem. The Meta settlement offers more useful regulatory ideas such as hiding like counts and an option for a non-personalised feed. These interventions will limit the engagement of the product rather than placing the entire burden on parents. However, we lack the legislative framework at present, and even under the DPDPA as there is no regulatory agency it is unlikely that India can require platforms to conduct child-risk assessments of recommender systems,” he said.
Children’s Rights
At the same time, children’s rights include privacy, expression, association and access to information. UNICEF cautions that age restrictions must be evidence-based rather than treated as a complete solution, Gupta added.
According to Mishi Choudhary, technology lawyer and founder, Software Freedom Law Center India (SFLC), what India can ask is whether children are exposed to the same product design and whether Meta applies the same safeguards here.
“India already prohibits behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising directed at children under the DPDP framework. India must closely scrutinise product design choices such as addictive engagement features, recommendation systems and defaults in Meta’s products,” she said.
Choudhary said India already has IT Rules, data protection obligations concerning children, platform grievance requirements and laws governing unlawful content. If further regulation is needed for children, it should address demonstrable harms such as manipulative design, require transparency and independent assessment, and avoid creating universal age verification or surveillance systems for everyone using the Internet.
Age Gating
“The US cases tell us that regulators should also examine how the products themselves are designed and what platforms know about their effects on children. Indian government has concentrated enormous attention on takedowns, content moderation and intermediary liability, but not on what we actually need for our kids,” she added.
NS Nappinai, Senior Advocate Supreme Court and Founder, Cyber Saathi, said that Meta is equally liable for such or similar violations, if any in India, and to assume a lacunae in law would be fallacious.
“The very basis of safe harbour is the absence of knowledge of an intermediary and where Meta may be shown to have consciously developed, deployed or misused algorithms such exemptions will not protect them. They will be well advised to shape up. Meanwhile State governments have been speaking of age gating for social media for underage children,” Nappinai noted.
It’s imperative that the Centre, under whose jurisdiction Cyber would fall, to act on this immediately and ensure protective and punitive measures are implemented to better protect children online, she added.
Published on August 27, 2026
