Social media age legislation in Pakistan modeled on Australian under-16 ban

Age restrictions for social media are spreading to countries in the global south, with Pakistan becoming the latest nation to table a law limiting social platforms to users over 16, with attendant requirements for digital age verification.

A blog from UNESCO says the Senate of Pakistan has introduced the “Social Media Age Restriction Bill 2025,” which purports to focus on cyberbullying, online exploitation and harmful digital content targeting minors. Pakistan says the law is based on Australia’s controversial social media ban for under-16s.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is the regulator tasked with enforcing the new law. Noncompliant platforms could face fines ranging from 50,000 to 5 million Pakistani rupees (about US$176-$17,700). Anyone found helping minors bypass age restrictions could also face up to six months in prison.

Per the blog, they will also set out to remove existing accounts of underage users – along with the jail time, a significant step beyond what most countries have proposed or adopted in their various age assurance laws.

Arguments center social media’s connective power

Yet even in countries like Pakistan, where cultural and religious norms are more restrictive about pornography than in North America or the EU (adult content websites are banned there), concerns remain over social media laws, notably around issues of privacy, proportionality and enforcement.

Medianama has published an article that raises these flags. It argues that age assurance laws for social media “risk setting a dangerous precedent: authoritarian regimes may point to these democracies to justify sweeping bans on social media and suppress dissent.”

“Policymakers must move beyond moral panic and engage with the nuances, recognizing that safeguarding kids online requires thoughtful, rights-respecting regulation, not sweeping bans.”

It is something of a bitter irony that many of the arguments against blanket age check legislation for social media rightly call for nuance, when social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X have played such an outsized role in eliminating nuance from political culture, social interaction and language.

However, while there are those who call for more evidence of the harms that social media causes minors, the evidence they cite in its favor are often naive at best. Medianama references a previously published opinion piece that falls into this trap.

Platforms can connect, but also dismantle

The piece highlights the supposed importance of social media for some children, especially those in unsafe or isolated environments. “For them, social media can be a support system, a learning platform, and even a career-launching space.” Moreover, it says, “many teens use platforms like Instagram and TikTok to showcase their talents, such as art, music, or writing, and to connect with opportunities that might otherwise be inaccessible.”

It has been proven that social platforms can be useful in crisis situations, and that marginalized communities have found it useful for connecting and mobilizing. The Arab Spring and the Idle No More movement in Canada illustrate this.

The notion that social media can launch a career is dubious at best; TikTok has launched careers for musicians, but only for a tiny percentage of its user base, and creating the “influencer” as a career path is not something to hang a laurel on.

Moreover, arguing that social platforms can be outlets for creativity ignores how they have hollowed out certain creative industries, forcing creators to become online promoters and marketers if they hope to stay afloat.

Finally, there is the assertion that facial age estimation and other biometric systems have a “chilling effect” on young users, “stifling creativity and deterring them from seeking help or learning online.” This is in direct contradiction to the popular argument that kids, ever-curious, will simply deal with age restrictions by finding unregulated content.

Nuance must go both ways in social media debate

Are kids curious or afraid? Are the creative outlets provided by social media at the expense of traditional media actually working to support and grow creativity? What percentage of people actually find a job through social media platforms?

These are all questions that require equally as much nuance as the issue of age checks. The notion that social media is a social good has been pushed by its creators from the very beginning; Facebook’s stated mission, recall, is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” These lofty would-be ambitions are too often taken at face value, from a company that literally started as a way to rate the sexual appeal of Mark Zuckerberg’s classmates, and has morphed into one of the world’s most effective channels for the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  children  |  Pakistan  |  social media