Medianama Identifies Challenges in Age Verification for Child Social Media Use
Medianama convened discussions on age verification and social media restrictions for children in India. The talks highlighted implementation issues and favored regulatory approaches over outright bans.
Medianama hosted two roundtable discussions in India to examine the feasibility and challenges of implementing age verification and restricting children's access to social media. The sessions took place in Bengaluru on May 15, 2026, and in Delhi on July 31, 2026.
The discussions brought together a range of experts, including professionals from the medical and legal fields, technology companies, parents, and child rights advocates. Teenagers and young adults also participated in the Delhi session, sharing their personal experiences with the internet.
The resulting brief critiques proposals based on age verification, noting its susceptibility to circumvention. In India's context of shared devices, robust verification could potentially lead to an Aadhaar-linked identity layer for all internet users. Broader consensus emerged for regulating platform design through age-appropriate design codes, default privacy settings, and profit-linked penalties, rather than outright bans.
The report also raises concerns about the realistic burden of responsibility that can be placed on parents, given India's uneven levels of digital literacy. Direct inclusion of young people surfaced arguments concerning isolation, marginalization, and identity that had not been fully accounted for in adult-only discussions.
The brief concludes with 14 recommendations, with the adoption of an age-appropriate design code as a primary alternative to a blanket ban.