PM mulls regulating social media use for children under 12

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late so­cial me­dia use for chil­dren un­der the age of 12 years, as con­cerns grow about the risks young users face on­line.

In a post on X on Tues­day night, re­spond­ing to com­ments by Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said con­cerns about pro­tect­ing chil­dren on­line were “valid” but warned against mea­sures which in­fringe on con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms.

“Our chil­dren must be safe­guard­ed from harm. How­ev­er, any blan­ket ban on adults would amount to an un­ac­cept­able en­croach­ment on free­dom of speech and ex­pres­sion,” she wrote.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said reg­u­la­tion of chil­dren’s ac­cess to so­cial me­dia would not be un­prece­dent­ed, point­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al ef­forts aimed at pro­tect­ing mi­nors in dig­i­tal spaces. She warned so­cial me­dia ex­pos­es chil­dren to “harm­ful con­tent, ex­ploita­tion, bul­ly­ing, ha­rass­ment, pornog­ra­phy, pae­dophiles and ma­nip­u­la­tion”.

She al­so raised the prospect of strength­en­ing le­gal pro­tec­tions for pri­vate cit­i­zens sub­ject­ed to on­line abuse and ha­rass­ment, ar­gu­ing “too many de­cent pri­vate law-abid­ing cit­i­zens lack the means to de­fend them­selves against anony­mous and face­less at­tack­ers”.

The Prime Min­is­ter stressed leg­is­la­tion can­not sub­sti­tute for parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Tech­nol­o­gy can­not re­place a par­ent’s guid­ance, val­ues, and care,” she said, urg­ing par­ents and guardians to close­ly mon­i­tor chil­dren’s on­line ac­tiv­i­ty. “The strongest and most ef­fec­tive so­cial me­dia reg­u­la­tion be­gins at home, with re­spon­si­ble par­ent­ing and ac­tive en­gage­ment in your chil­dren’s lives.”