Name to governments and tech firms comes amid a world push for better accountability and oversight of social media platforms.
Printed On 29 Might 2026
The United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights has known as for pressing motion to guard kids on-line, demanding or not it’s made a “precedence”.
In an announcement launched on Friday, Volker Turk known as for stronger motion by governments and tech firms to make on-line platforms safer.
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“Enhancing safety of children on-line is an pressing precedence,” he insisted.
The decision comes amid a world push for better accountability and oversight of social media platforms, with international locations testing age-based bans and stricter laws, and stress rising on know-how firms.
Alongside the assertion, the UN human rights workplace launched a set of pointers aimed toward bettering kids’s security on-line and defending their rights by stronger regulation.
The measures embody safeguards round age verification processes, necessary baby rights influence assessments, and involving kids in shaping regulatory responses.
“We want a lot wider motion – by governments and corporations – to make sure that the platforms themselves are made safer by design, that information is protected, that these chargeable for hurt could be held to account, and that kids’s rights and desires are totally revered all through,” Turk stated.
“No matter laws are adopted, it’s important to keep away from inadvertently inflicting additional harms. For instance, age verification achieved mistaken can each fail at its aim and endanger the privateness of each youngsters and adults,” he added.
Turk added that laws targeted solely on the age of customers threat leaving unchanged the design selections and algorithmic practices that make platforms unsafe within the first place.
Restrictions on kids’s entry to social media have proliferated globally following Australia’s adoption of laws limiting entry for kids beneath 16 in December 2025.
Indonesia and Malaysia have additionally launched age-based restrictions, whereas throughout Europe, many international locations are additionally contemplating limiting kids’s entry to social media.
Austria stated in late March that it plans to ban social media for kids beneath the age of 14, with draft laws anticipated to be finalised by June. Denmark and France are additionally set to ban social media platforms for kids beneath 15.
Spain’s prime minister introduced in early February that the nation plans to ban social media for kids beneath 16, whereas the UK is weighing related restrictions.
Nevertheless, some baby security specialists say bans alone don’t go far sufficient, calling as an alternative for tighter regulation requiring know-how firms to higher average dangerous content material and platform design.
Chris Sherwood, chief govt of Britain’s Nationwide Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Youngsters, has beforehand known as on governments to “guarantee dangerous content material is blocked on the supply” and for “platforms not utilizing design methods that preserve teenagers hooked”.
