The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday said that just like there is a legal age for drinking alcohol it will be suitable if an age limit was introduced for using social media.
“Ban social media. I will tell you a lot of good will come. Today’s school-going children are so addicted to it. I think there should be an age limit such as in Excise rules,” the court said.
The court further said that “children may be 17 or 18. But do they have the maturity to judge what is or is not in the interest of the nation? Not only on social media, but even on the Internet things should be removed, it corrupts the mind. The government should consider bringing in an age limit for the use of social media.”
A division bench of the High Court made the observation while hearing an appeal by X, earlier known as Twitter, challenging the single-judge order of June 30 which had dismissed its plea against the takedown orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY).
MeiTY had under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act between February 2, 2021, and February 28, 2022, issued 10 Government Orders directing X to block 1,474 accounts, 175 Tweets, 256 URLs, and one hashtag.
X challenged the orders related to 39 of these URLs.
The hearing of the case was adjourned to Wednesday when the court will decide on the interim relief sought by X. The hearing of the appeal will be heard after that, the High Court said.
