Meta’s landmark settlement with a coalition of US states has put age assurance at the centre of its latest child-safety measures, while the company faces separate scrutiny in India over child sexual abuse material and prepares to comply with the Digital Personal Data Protection framework.
Under the US agreement, approved by a judge, Facebook and Instagram users under 18 will face a default two-hour daily screen-time limit, a midnight-to-6 am access block and muted notifications between 8 am and 3 pm. Meta will also strengthen technology to identify teenagers aged 13 to 17 who provide an adult birthday.
The measures also allow teenagers to choose a non-algorithmic feed, disable autoplay, and hide like counts by default. Meta will strengthen parental controls and restrictions on unwanted contact from adults, while establishing an independent research foundation and an auditor to assess compliance.
Meta Chief Legal Officer CJ Mahoney has called for TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar protections, arguing that teenagers move between multiple platforms.
India’s DPDP framework addresses a different set of risks. It requires verifiable parental consent before processing children’s personal data and prohibits targeted advertising and behavioural monitoring and profiling of children. However, it does not specifically regulate social media addiction, mental wellbeing or screen time.
“The Indian DPDP framework is focused on privacy-related risks and harms,” said Aparajita Bharti, founding partner of Delhi-based research firm The Quantum Hub. She said India should develop its own evidence base and consider a principles-based “wellbeing by design” framework suited to local conditions.
Age assurance remains a key challenge because platforms need to establish whether a user is a child while avoiding unnecessary collection of personal information. Delhi-based lawyer Shruti Narayan said age verification alone could be bypassed and called for greater transparency around content moderation, algorithmic data collection and independent research.
Meta’s WhatsApp has already begun testing a voluntary age-declaration mechanism in India, asking some users for their date of birth. The test is not currently a mandatory identity-verification system.
India also faces a separate challenge involving CSAM, with the government seeking action from platforms over its circulation and promotion. Experts said US safety measures cannot simply be replicated in India, given differences such as shared device use and school restrictions on phones.