UN chief urges TikTok and YouTube to follow Meta's example on protecting children
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has called on governments and technology companies to strengthen the protection of children online and to make the safety of minors one of the key principles in the design of social platforms.
His statement came after Meta reached a settlement in a major court case in the United States providing for additional measures to protect children and teenagers.
According to Türk, social networks should be designed from the outset with the interests and safety of underage users in mind. He believes that states need to regulate the activities of technology companies more actively, rather than waiting for changes to come about as a result of litigation or voluntary decisions by the platforms themselves.
The head of the UN human rights body stressed that children should not have to wait for the conclusion of years-long court proceedings in order to receive basic safety guarantees when using the internet. In his view, responsibility for creating a safe digital environment should lie not only with individual companies, but also with government agencies that shape the rules for the entire industry.
Türk also noted that a number of the measures Meta agreed to under the settlement correspond to approaches previously proposed by his office. In particular, these concern limiting the amount of time children spend on social networks, strengthening parental control tools, and improving mechanisms for protecting minors. At the same time, in his assessment, the current changes are not sufficient to fully resolve the problem.
In May, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights presented a document containing ten basic principles for regulating social networks. It devotes particular attention to protecting children's personal data, increasing platform safety already at the design stage, improving user age-verification technologies, and restricting features that can foster excessive dependence on social networks.
At the same time, authorities in the United States intend to seek the extension of the new requirements beyond Meta's products. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who represented the state in the lawsuit against the company, announced his intention to press for similar changes from TikTok and YouTube.
Bonta said he is interested in discussing new measures with other major platforms popular among children and teenagers. According to him, TikTok representatives have already shown a willingness to engage in dialogue. In addition, he said he had contacted the company Snap, which is also popular among a young audience.
At the same time, California authorities are not ruling out further legal action. Bonta warned that if companies do not agree to voluntarily implement comparable mechanisms for protecting minors, the authorities are prepared to consider additional pressure measures.
Meta, for its part, also stressed that the effectiveness of the new rules would be significantly higher if other major social platforms introduced similar restrictions. The company believes that uniform requirements for the entire industry would ensure a higher level of protection for children and would prevent users from simply moving to another platform where such restrictions do not exist.
At the same time, the United Nations does not consider a complete ban on social networks for children to be a universal solution. The document presented earlier by the High Commissioner's office notes that the main focus should be on creating a safer digital environment, rather than solely on restricting minors' access to platforms.
Thus, the settlement with Meta could become the basis for a broader revision of the rules governing how social networks work with child and teenage audiences. The question now is whether TikTok, YouTube, Snap and other major platforms will agree to voluntarily implement similar mechanisms, or whether government agencies will have to use additional legislative and judicial tools to extend the new requirements to the entire industry.
