BENGALURU: Orally observing that schoolchildren are addicted to social media, the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday suggested to the Centre to examine fixing the minimum age for the usage of social media so as to prevent children from using it.
A division bench of Justice G Narendar and Justice Vijaykumar A Patil made this oral suggestion while hearing the appeal filed by X Corp, formerly Twitter, against the order passed by the single judge dismissing its petition challenging multiple blocking orders passed by the Union Government.
The court orally observed that schoolchildren are addicted to social media, and hence, it is best that social media be banned. If so, a lot of good will come. At least, the government should bring a user age limit. The children, maybe 17 or 18, lack the maturity to judge what is in the interest of the nation and what is not. The user should be at least 21 years of age, the court said in its oral remarks.
Meanwhile, the counsel representing the Centre submitted that a law has been made for mandatory Aadhaar and other document verification before accessing certain online games.
Then the court again orally asked why similar measures were not being extended to social media. “X Corp may not agree, but still...” the court orally said.