A day after Andhra Pradesh’s IT and Education Minister Nara Lokesh said the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)-led government was mulling over bringing an Australia-like law on banning social media for children under the age of 16, a Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by him has been set up study the proposal. Andhra Pradesh is the first state where such a proposal has been mooted.
“The GoM will have Home Minister Anita Vangalapudi, Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav, and I&PR Minister Kolusu Parthasarathi,” a government source said on Thursday, adding that the the GoM would study and collate data from cases across the state where children under 16 are either the victims of social media abuse or the accused.
On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, Lokesh told Bloomberg, “The government is studying Australia’s decision to ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media. Youngsters below a certain age should not be on such platforms, as they do not fully understand the content they are exposed to. A strong legal framework may be required to implement the proposal.”
A senior TDP leader, however, said the implementation of such a proposal would be complex and would require the support of ally BJP. “Regulating Information Technology requires the Centre’s approval as it pertains to the IT Act. But before we approach them, we need to finalise the structure of the proposal at the state level. Once that is done, we will approach the Centre,” the leader said, adding that convincing the Centre was not likely to be difficult as the TDP is a BJP ally.
In several cases, including the landmark 2020 ruling inAnuradha Bhasin v Union of India, the Supreme Court has held that the right to freedom of speech and expressionincludes the use of the Internet. The Kerala High Court in 2019 termed the right to access the Internet a part of the Right to Education under Article 21A of the Constitution. A ban on social media for minors will require the state to restrict this right without limiting access to information and hindering digital literacy. Such a ban will have to follow the principles of proportionality and minimal invasion of rights.
“A meeting is likely to be held after Lokesh returns from Davos to chart out a roadmap to implement the proposal,” said a senior government official.
TDP national spokesperson Deepak Reddy told The Indian Express that the idea came up during Lokesh’s five-day trip to Australia last October, adding that while “the modalities of the proposal will be worked out after he returns,” he had put serious thought into it.
“Children cannot be exposed to the ills of social media in their formative years. Also, in recent times, we have seen a lot of social media abuse. The proposal is a way to prevent people from being attacked on social media,” Reddy said.
“We have not zeroed in only on the social media ban from the Australians. We saw how they are successfully skilling their population and spoke to the Australians to set up shop in Andhra and help skill our population,” he said, adding the Andhra government would build on global good governance practices.
Indian and Australian models
While there is no law yet on regulating the use of social media platforms by children, under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, tech companies are required to implement a mechanism for collecting “verifiable” parental consent before processing the personal data of children, even though it does not prescribe a particular technical measure to collect such consent. As per the law, a child is defined as an individual below the age of 18.
The law also directs companies not to process personal data of children in cases where it could cause any detrimental effect on their well-being, and not to track or engage in behavioural monitoring or targeted advertising directed at children.
The Australian law, called the “Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act”, states that age-restricted platforms will be expected to take “reasonable” steps to find existing accounts held by under-16s, and deactivate or remove those accounts, prevent them from opening new accounts, including prohibiting any workarounds that may allow under-16s to bypass the restrictions. Platforms also need to have processes to correct errors if someone is mistakenly missed by or included in the restrictions, so no one’s account is removed unfairly.
While the Australian government reasoned that the restrictions aim to protect young people from “pressures and risks” that they can be exposed to on social media, it drew opposition from Big Tech.
A previous TDP attempt
This is also not the first time the TDP has attempted to raise the issue of a social media ban. Last November, during the Winter Session of Parliament, the party’s parliamentary floor leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, the Narasaraopet MP, sought to introduce a Bill on the issue. However, the matter never came up for discussion. Sources said the MP would again raise it during the coming Budget Session.
Listing the reasons for introducing the Social Media (Age Restrictions and Online Safety) Bill, 2025, Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu said it was necessary to create a safer digital environment for children, while holding social media platforms accountable for protecting minors online. Much like the Australian law, the Bill sought to mandate social media companies to implement “appropriate age-verification mechanisms” and prohibit the creation or maintenance of accounts by individuals below the prescribed age, protecting the children’s personal data by requiring immediate and permanent deletion of all information collected during age-verification processes”.
