Will Centre impose age limits on social media? Vaishnaw says discussions underway
New Delhi: The Centre is in talks with social media platforms on introducing age-based access restrictions, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday.
“Right now we are in a conversation regarding deepfakes, regarding age-based restrictions with the various social media platforms and... what is the right way to go about this,” Vaishnaw told reporters on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
The minister said stronger regulatory safeguards are required to deal with deepfake content, particularly to protect children and vulnerable users, adding that consultations with industry stakeholders are already underway.
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“I think we need much stronger regulations on deepfakes. It is a problem growing day by day. Certainly, there is a need for protecting our children and our society from these harms... we have initiated a dialogue with industry on what kind of regulation will be needed beyond what we already have,” he said.
Vaishnaw stressed that all digital platforms must comply with Indian laws and constitutional provisions. “Any company, be it Netflix, YouTube, Meta, or X, must abide by the legal framework and the Constitution of India,” he said.
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He also noted that parliamentary committees have examined the issue in detail and that building political consensus will be key to bringing in tougher norms. “We need much stronger regulations on deepfakes, and we must definitely create that consensus within Parliament for creating those significantly stronger restrictions on deepfakes so society can be protected from these harms,” the minister said.
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Pointing to global trends, Vaishnaw said several countries have already acknowledged the need for age-based controls on digital content. He added that India had taken an early step in this direction through provisions in the Digital Personal Data Protection framework that introduced age-based differentiation for online access by young users.