Blocking children from social media is no substitute for making platforms safe in the first place. That was the message from the UN human rights office on May 29th, as it issued a ten-point framework urging governments and technology companies to go further and faster to protect children online.

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the harms children face in digital spaces were not inevitable but the result of deliberate commercial choices. Addictive design features such as infinite scroll, autoplay and persistent notifications were among the culprits he named. The guidelines, titled Getting Children’s Safety Online Right, arrive as age-based restrictions on social media proliferate worldwide. Australia barred children under 16 from platforms in December 2025, with Indonesia and Malaysia following suit, and more than a dozen other countries weighing similar moves.

Mr. Türk cautioned that such bans can be easily circumvented and risk pushing children towards riskier, less monitored spaces. Peggy Hicks, the OHCHR’s Director of Thematic Engagement, put the choice to technology companies bluntly: redesign your platforms to protect children’s rights, or be forced to do so through increasingly restrictive legislation and regulatory fines.

The framework calls for safety to be embedded into platform architecture from the outset rather than left to parents and children to manage themselves. It also recommends mandatory child rights impact assessments, tightly regulated age verification and meaningful consultation with children when crafting regulatory responses. Ms. Hicks stressed that the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and chatbots made agile, evidence-based policymaking essential.

Source: UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR.org. May 29th, 2026.