Banning social media for children a policy decision: Delhi High Court asks Centre to examine PIL

The Delhi High Court on Thursday said that banning or restricting social media access to children is a policy decision which is best left to the government. 

A Division Bench of Justices V Kameswar Rao and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora disposed of a public interest litigation (PIL) petition to restrict social media access to children and prohibition of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). 

The Court said that the Central government will consider the issues raised in the PIL and take an appropriate decision after taking into consideration the suggestions made by the petitioners and consulting all the stakeholders, including social media intermediaries. 

“These are all in the domain of policy. They will be looking into it… Your [petitioners’] views would be taken into consideration by the respondents [government]. The stakeholders have to be consulted. Their views have to be taken… It’s in the realm of a policy, not for a court to give a direction that you should ban this, or you should ban that. Let them look into it, let them look into it, and then pass an order,” the Bench said. 

It added that it was not fixing any timeline for the government to take a call on the issue.

The Court passed the order while dealing with a PIL filed by Kirti Dua, mother of a three-year-old, and a paediatrician named Dr Sharad Gupta.

According to the PIL, unchecked exposure to inappropriate and sexually explicit material on social media violates the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution, as well as the State's duty under Article 39(f) to protect children from exploitation.

The PIL highlighted the government's economic survey of 2025-2026 that flagged rising social media addiction and mental health concerns among youth. 

"Even though they [Economic Survey] listed some measures in order to curb this viscous cycle of digital addiction, still it is voluntary in nature and we need a binding legislation for this serious issue," the plea said. 

Senior Advocate Arvind Datar appeared for Meta today and argued that Facebook and Instagram have been taking serious steps to control the CSAM material on their platform. 

“The number of accounts taken down is enormous. At the same time, you can't stop some perverted rogue elements who do it. The technology is growing more and more, and it is easier to identify. There is photo DNA, there is so many techniques that have come into place, but what happens is, despite all our efforts, something leaks out and that comes into the media,” Datar said. 

He added that the proactive CSAM detection rate is 99.5 per cent for Facebook and 95.2 per cent for Instagram. 

Senior Advocate Pinky Anand and advocate Anshul Gupta appeared for the petitioners and sought directions to be issued to Meta to put in place technology or audit systems to pull down the offending content. 

The Court said the government will look into the issues. 

Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Nidhi Raman appeared for the Central government.