Protecting childhood from the harmful impact of social media in the digital era is no longer a matter of parental choice alone, it is a matter of public policy and responsibility of the government.

Undoubtedly, the smartphone has become one of the most powerful influencing tools on childhood in the contemporary world. Our children must have full access to unharmful contents on the internet. Digital platforms can educate, connect and entertain everyone, but unrestricted access to social media can also expose children to cyberbullying, sexual exploitation, misinformation, addictive algorithms, gambling, harmful drug abuse, violent and disturbing material, and strangers who may seek to manipulate or abuse them.

For Bangladesh, the question is no longer whether children should use the internet. They should — and they must, because digital literacy is essential for education and employment in the modern world. The more important question is: Should children below the age of 16 be allowed unrestricted or unlimited access to social-media platforms designed primarily for social interaction, engagement, marketing products, and commercial attractions? My answer is no.

Bangladesh should seriously consider protecting our future generation through introducing legislation preventing children under 16 from holding or operating accounts on major social-media platforms, following the lead of Australia and the United Kingdom.

Australia restricted social media in December 2025

Australia has become the first country in the world to implement a nationwide minimum age of 16 for accounts on age-restricted social-media platforms. Since 10 December 2025, platforms covered by the Australian rules have been required to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from creating or maintaining accounts. Importantly, the law places the responsibility on the platforms — not on children or their parents. Platforms can face penalties of up to A$49.5 million for failing to comply.

Australia's policy is based on the basic principle that children should not be expected to protect themselves against sophisticated digital systems specifically engineered explosive and exploitative means to maximise engagement.

The Australian approach does not mean that children under 16 are prohibited from using the internet. Educational websites, ordinary web browsing and many forms of digital communication remain possible. The objective is to delay access to social-media accounts until children are matured enough to identify and understand the harmful contents and manage the risks.

Britain is following Australia

The United Kingdom has now announced an even stronger move. The British Government says it will introduce legislation to prevent social-media platforms from offering services to children under 16, with the proposed protections expected to come into force in spring 2027. The government says the policy has strong parental support.

Britain's decision is significant because it demonstrates that concern about children's social-media exposure is not an Australian peculiarity. It is becoming an international concern beyond any single national.

Other countries are also examining restrictions or stronger age-assurance requirements. New Zealand, for example, is pursuing an under-16 social-media proposal, while governments and regulators elsewhere are strengthening age verification and child-safety obligations.

Bangladesh must act now

Our children deserve a natural environment without the intervention and influence of technologies or ultra-processed food with strong morality, social values, intellectual vigour and physical strength to succeed in lives.

Many Bangladesh children are already addicted with social media seriously destructing them from their studies and normal physical and intellectual growth. In the absence of monitoring and supervision of the parents due to lack of time or digital knowledge, the children are spending exclusive and unlimited time on the dangerous and addictive contents. Many of them are being hunted or drugged by the predators for gambling, sexual exploitation and potentially dangerous relationship beyond any knowledge of the parents.

Children in Bangladesh has already shown serious impact of social media on their lives and behaviours. Bangladesh should act now without waiting until the problem becomes substantially worse and many children destroy their future.

UNICEF's research already provides disturbing evidence about children's online experiences in Bangladesh. It also found that 63 per cent primarily used the internet in their own rooms, highlighting the difficulty of parental supervision. Furthermore, a UNICEF-commissioned survey reported that 32 per cent of respondents in Bangladesh had experienced online bullying, including bullying related to appearance, examination results, religion and other issues.

In another UNICEF youth poll published in 2025, two out of three young people in Bangladesh identified excessive fake news and misinformation as the most significant source of stress on social media. Bullying and negative comments were also major sources of distress, while one in seven respondents identified exposure to harmful or upsetting content as their principal source of social-media stress.

These are not abstract dangers. They demonstrate that Bangladeshi children are already experiencing the harmful side of the digital environment.

The danger is much greater than cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is only one part of the problem. Children have been encountering sexual exploitation and grooming; requests for photographs or personal information; sextortion and image-based abuse; hate speech and religious or communal incitement; violent and sexually explicit material; misinformation and conspiracy theories; dangerous online challenges; gambling-related promotion; fraudulent schemes; strangers attempting to establish relationships; algorithms that repeatedly expose children to increasingly extreme material; and compulsive screen use that interferes with sleep, study, physical activity and family relationships.

The scale of online sexual exploitation is particularly alarming. A UNICEF report released this week estimated that approximately 20 million internet-using children across 21 countries experienced online sexual exploitation or abuse in a single year. The study found that much of the abuse occurred through platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. It also found that exposure to such abuse was associated with increased risks of anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

Bangladesh cannot assume that its children are somehow immune from these global risks.

Why the age of 16?

Some may ask: Why 16 rather than 13, 14 or 18? Sixteen is not a magical age at which a child suddenly becomes immune to online harm. It is just a policy threshold based on agreed consensus.

The issue is that social-media platforms combine several powerful features — algorithmic recommendation, social comparison, continuous notifications, public feedback, targeted advertising and potentially anonymous contact — with a child's still-developing capacity for judgement and self-control.

The purpose of a minimum age is therefore not to declare that a 15-year-old is incapable of using technology. It is to recognise that childhood deserves a protected period before young people are exposed to the full commercial and social pressures of the adult digital environment.

Parents cannot carry the entire burden

Some people will argue that parents should simply supervise their children. Parental responsibility is unquestionably important. But it is unrealistic to expect parents to compete with billion-dollar technology companies whose algorithms operate continuously and whose products are deliberately designed to maximise attention.

A parent may tell a child to spend 30 minutes online. The platform may send notifications throughout the evening. A parent may remove one harmful account. The recommendation system may produce another. A parent may teach a child not to communicate with strangers. A sophisticated predator may spend weeks building trust.

This is why regulation is necessary to make the technological giants responsible to limit their aggressive acts. Parents should educate and supervise; technology companies should design safer systems; and governments should establish enforceable minimum standards.

But Bangladesh must avoid a crude "internet ban"

A social-media age restriction should not become an attempt to isolate children from the digital world. That would be counterproductive.

Schools should continue to use digital learning. Children should have access to educational websites, research resources, government services and age-appropriate communication.

The proposed restriction should therefore focus on social-media accounts and platforms whose principal functions involve public social networking, algorithmic feeds and open interaction, rather than the internet as a whole.

There should also be carefully defined exemptions for educational and child-safety services.

The law should target Big Tech, not children

Bangladesh should learn an important lesson from Australia. The responsibility for enforcing the minimum age should rest primarily with platform providers, not with children.

Children should not be fined or criminalised for having an account. Nor should parents be treated as criminals because their child manages to circumvent an age restriction.

Instead, platforms should be required to implement effective age-assurance systems and face meaningful penalties when they deliberately or negligently permit underage accounts.

This principle is particularly important because technology companies have the technical resources and financial capacity to implement age-assurance mechanisms.

Given the cultural sensitivity, religious instructions, and harmful impact on the families and society, Bangladesh should ban all online gambling, drug trading, and explosive sexual contents for the people of all ages, not just for children.

Age verification with privacy protection

There may be a legitimate concern about privacy for the age verification. But it should not become an excuse for collecting excessive personal information, biometric data or identity documents from millions of children. Use of valid birth certificate with approval of parents may be effective checks.

Bangladesh should establish strict privacy safeguards, data minimisation requirements, independent auditing and severe penalties for misuse of age-verification information.

Bangladesh needs a National Child Digital Safety Framework

Ideally, Bangladesh develop a National Child Digital Safety Framework based on (a) major social-media platforms should be prohibited from allowing children below 16 to create or maintain accounts; (b) the legal obligation should fall primarily on technology companies, supported by substantial financial penalties for non-compliance; (c) digital citizenship, misinformation, cyberbullying, privacy, online fraud and responsible technology use should become part of the school curriculum; (d) parents should receive practical guidance and tools for managing children's digital lives without relying exclusively on surveillance; and (e ) Bangladesh should establish or empower an independent digital-safety regulator capable of monitoring platforms, investigating complaints and enforcing child-protection standards.

We should not wait for a tragedy

In many countries, government normally reacts to crises rather than preventing them. Bangladesh should take a different, pro-active approach.

There is already plenty of evidence to demonstrate that children are being exposed to cyberbullying, misinformation, sexual exploitation and harmful content, policymakers should not wait for thousands more children to become victims before acting.

Australia has taken the lead. Britain is following. Other countries are considering similar measures. These developments should prompt Bangladesh to ask not whether we can copy another country's legislation word for word, but what kind of digital childhood we want for Bangladeshi children.

Protect childhood for prosperous future

Every child needs time to grow as a normal adult in a safe and secured environment through study, play, sleep, exercise, communicate with family and develop real-world friendships.

There is nothing inherently wrong with technology. However, technology should serve childhood, not childhood serve technology.

The objective should therefore not be to make Bangladesh anti-technology or anti-social media. It should be to establish a sensible boundary between digital opportunity and digital exploitation risking normal growth.

A minimum social-media age of 16 would not solve every problem. Children will still encounter risks online, and determined teenagers will attempt to circumvent restrictions. Enforcement will be difficult. Age verification will require careful privacy protection, and ensuring correct determination and application of age would be the key to success. But imperfect enforcement is not an argument for doing nothing.

Bangladesh should give its children the opportunity to grow up before asking them to navigate an online world increasingly designed to capture their attention, influence their behaviour and monetise their vulnerability.

Protecting children from alarming social media danger is not a restriction on their freedom, rather securing their safety and unadulterated future.