The Supreme Court today agreed to hear a plea seeking safeguards for minors accessing social media and other digital platforms and to ensure that no such platform enters into a contract with a child below 18 years of age.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana issued notices to the Centre and others on a plea filed by an NGO.
The petition contended that despite strict penal provisions prohibiting the dissemination and storage of Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material, internet platforms have failed to deploy automated content-filtering tools and age-verification mechanisms. The plea contended that platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat (India) permit users to create accounts from the age of 13 while Indian law treats persons below 18 as minors.
