IT Minister Ashwini Vaishanaw emphasises social media's role in child safety, algorithmic transparency

Social media platforms must take responsibility for content, undertake necessary steps to ensure child safety and ensure algorithmic transparency to empower citizens to address their grievances, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday.

The minister emphasised the need for platforms to proactively protect society from online harms, including “digital arrest” scams, according to PTI.

The Union Minister’s comments came following a Supreme Court verdict declaring the right to use the internet as a fundamental right of children, directing the Centre to create a national database for detection of sexually explicit visuals depicting minors from digital platforms and their removal.


"Today, social media platforms must take the responsibility for child safety, for women's safety, for digital arrest, for the harms which come to the citizens, ...social media platforms must take proactive steps. Unlike the past, they must take proactive steps to make sure that our society is safe," said Vaishnaw.

The minister noted that if content on a platform causes serious harm, the only recourse available to a citizen is to approach the courts or the police and stressed that citizens must be given a voice on these platforms.

"If something is there on the social media platforms, which causes serious harm to the citizens, the citizens have only the recourse to go to the courts or go to the police. There has to be a good, very effective mechanism by which the citizens get a voice to address their grievances," he said.

The apex court had earlier passed its order on a plea of an NGO, Just Rights for Children Alliance, which highlighted an increased circulation of child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) on social media platforms, reported PTI.

However, the court noted that its observations did not imply the elimination of age-related restrictions.

(With inputs from PTI)