Observing that schoolchildren are nowadays addicted to social media, the High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday orally remarked that the Central government has to, at least, bring in a minimum user age limit for accessing social media.
A Division Bench comprising Justice G. Narendar and Justice Vijayakumar A. Patil made the oral remarks during the hearing of an appeal, filed by X Corp (formerly Twitter), questioning the single judge’s June 30 verdict of upholding blocking orders passed against X for removing objectionable posts and blocking accounts under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
‘Best to ban’
“Best is to ban social media. I will tell you a lots of good will come... Today schoolchildren are addicted to it [social media]. At least you should bring a user age limit. What maturity do children aged 17-18 have to judge what is in the interest of nation, and what is not? User of social media should be at least of the age of 21...” Justice Narendar said.
When a counsel representing the Central government said that law at present requires the user to submit KYC documents to access certain online games, Justice Narendar orally asked why same measures should not be extended for accessing social media.
On amending rules
The court also observed orally that rules may have to be amended so that intermediaries like X are not threatened with prosecution by the accountholders if the intermediaries are asked to take down objectionable posts or accounts while maintaining confidentiality of blocking orders.
