Pakistan court moved to ban social media accounts for children, teenagers under 16

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani man has petitioned the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to direct the government to introduce a legislation to prevent children and teenagers under 16 from creating or operating social media accounts, the petitioner’s lawyer said on Sunday, citing risks of cyberbullying, sexual exploitation and exposure to harmful content. 

The petition comes as social media use expands rapidly in Pakistan. DataReportal, a digital intelligence firm, estimated that the country had 117 million Internet users and 79.9 million active social media user identities, equivalent to 31.2 percent of the total population. 

Children and young people represent a substantial share of the national demographic, which shows that over 11 percent of Pakistan’s population is aged 13 to 17, with a median national age of approximately 20.6 years. 

The petition, filed by lawyers Jalal Haider, Yahya Farid Khwaja and Muhammad Zeshan Ali on behalf of Waqas Nasir, draws on Australia’s restrictions on social media use by under-16s as a precedent, seeking an age-verification mechanism for social media accounts of children and teenagers under 16.

“Basically, we have referenced Australia’s law as a precedent, where they introduced rules regarding a minimum age for social media in 2024... Under those rules, the use of social media has been banned for children under 16 years of age,” Haider said.

“In Pakistan, if you look at TikTok, for instance, out of say one million users in Pakistan, half of them are children under 16,” he said. “So regulating this is extremely important because a situation has emerged where children have become addicted to it.

Haider said the scale of children’s exposure to social media made state regulation necessary. 

“Issues like cyberbullying, sexual exploitation, and harmful content have arisen, and children under 16 cannot exactly approach the FIA on their own,” the lawyer said, referring to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). 

The petition invokes the legal principle of parens patriae, under which the state acts as a guardian to protect minors, according to Haider. It places primary emphasis on technological age verification rather than solely burdening parents. 

“We have emphasized parental control, but we have placed greater emphasis on an age verification mechanism,” he said.

“PTA (Pakistan Telecommunications Authority) and NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority) should jointly build a similar mechanism to detect if a user is under 16, so that their account cannot be created or operated at all.” 

The proposal places obligations on both families and digital platforms.

“We have mentioned imposing penalties on parents if they allow children under 16 to use social media,” Haider said. “Secondly, social media apps should also be obligated to align their platforms with Pakistani laws.” 

Platform enforcement metrics illustrate that a vast volume of content and underage accounts are removed globally and locally. TikTok routinely deletes tens of millions of videos quarterly in Pakistan for violating community guidelines, while globally it removes over 20 million accounts per quarter that are suspected of belonging to users under the minimum age of 13. 

Public health research underscores growing international concern regarding digital platform exposure.

A US Surgeon General’s Advisory warned that adolescents spending more than three hours daily on social media face double the risk of experiencing depression and anxiety symptoms. The American Psychological Association similarly recommends restricting youth exposure to content involving self-harm, cyberbullying, and sexualized material, citing increased vulnerability among minors. 

Australia enacted its Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, by setting a statutory age limit of 16. 

Haider said the petition targets nationwide legislative action. 

“We have made the Federal Government, the Federation of Pakistan, a party to this so that a federal law is enacted. Once that law is passed, it will naturally be enforceable across Pakistan,” he added.