- 06/02/2025
- Category: Commentaries
Author: Luthfi Baihaqi Riziq
Editor: Achmed Faiz Yudha Siregar
Too Young to Scroll? The Fight over Social Media Age Limits
Luthfi Baihaqi Riziq
Introduction
In January 2025, the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) announced plans for further regulations regarding underage protection in social media. The plans propose three points of social media policy: (1) social media usage age limitations for kids, probably under 16 years of age (2) data security features for kids, and (3) a report system made available by social media platforms in case of feature or content abuse by underage users.[1] This commentary will touch on the first point in order to assess the viability of age limit regulation and reconsider what it entails.
Where Have We Traversed to?
Limiting social media usage by age is not a new idea. It has been implemented since the rise of online and electronic commerce, most famously spearheaded by the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which was effective by 2000.[2] It was enforced nationally and became the baseline privacy policy for social media platforms, many of which are based in the US.
COPPA forces many online services to restrict usage and transaction of those under the age of 13. Kids under 13 are legally permitted to give out personal information with parental consent, though many services downright disallow services to under 13 year olds to not bother with the legal costs of COPPA. 13 is the number most used by social media platforms in their privacy policy. However, other countries enacted laws to delay teenage usage. Spain, for instance, increased it to 14.[3]
Age limit regulation for social media usage varies from country to country. Many countries, mainly the US and EU countries, abide by the standard 13. Other countries, like France, go with 15, while countries like the UK and Australia settle for 16. This regulation can vary even inside the country in special cases where some regions have a certain degree of autonomy. In Florida, for example, the age limit is extended to 14.[4]
This regulation is further enforced by enacting high fines and threat of licensing withdrawal to social media platforms who do not comply with national standards. For example, Australia will charge a fine up to US$32.5 million to tech companies who allow children under the age of 16 to use social media.[5] Other countries also use various means of security. In addition to fines, Australia is also considering biometric verification and ID card confirmation;[6] Norway uses bank account verification;[7] France intends to allow parents to request suspension of their childrens’ account and mandate sites to offer tools to limit the usage duration.[8]
The exploration of suitable regulation does not stop at age limits. Countries like China and Vietnam also considered the viability of duration limits. In China, there is a time restriction for kids from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., encouraging sleep at night hours. Vietnam restricts teenage social media usage to 3 hours per day on top of parental identity verification.[9]
Enacting age restrictions to social media have only been partially successful. While the regulation led social media platforms to add age conditions in their use policy, many have no verification mechanisms to check the users’ honesty. Some popular platforms, namely Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook do require their users to be at least 13 when registering, but there is no verification step to see if they are telling the truth. Others, like Discord and WhatsApp, do set the age to 13 and 16 respectively; however, there is no input interface and only a checkbox to confirm that users are of age. All in all, this requirement is easily penetrable.[10]
There is No Right Age
Considering the regulatory variations written above, it will be safe to say that Indonesia should not wholly mimic a country, but rather try to adjust from select best practices and its own socioeconomic & cultural context. For starters, it has been observed that kids who consume social media content mostly come from economically middle to lower class families who perceive it as cheap entertainment.[11] BPS survey also shows children aged 5-12 to be the third biggest population of social media users in Indonesia at 12,27% (roughly 35 million children).[12] These could potentially suggest that parents and adults may assist children in accessing social media by lending ID cards or telling them to put in a fake age when registering.[13]
So, what are these supposed “best practices”? For now, the current plan to not just rely on the age limit is a welcome step. This is because there is much evidence to suggest that age might matter less than we think in this ordeal. In any case, 13 year olds (or even 18 year olds for that matter) are kids with not fully developed brains yet.[14] And yet, even when we bypass this neurological criteria, some teenagers are indubitably more mentally mature than others. Another considerable approach to child and teenage protection on social media is from a child rights perspective: we can perceive a fixed age limit restriction to be infringing on the agency of those who are already equipped with the maturity and capacity to access social media wisely.[15]
A study has suggested that initiating access to social media older (13+) is correlated to fewer problematic digital technology behaviors and higher sympathetic online behaviors, compared to their younger (<12) counterparts.[16] However, this is not to be read as a one size fits all solution since the data also demonstrates that there are no clear cut-off ages when problematic behaviors arise.
We also have not cleared the risks associated with age limit restrictions. These include the possibility of “underground” social media with less restrictions and an overemphasis on regulation over education, which might be a slippery slope for the next step of policies. With Indonesia’s current conditions, imposition of age limit restrictions will not account for kids and teenagers who already simulate problematic online behaviors. This is important to consider because, equally to or even more potently than parents, children influence each other in reproducing undesirable behaviors.[17]
Conclusion
This short commentary should serve as a warning sign to possible landmines Komdigi can step in while attempting to protect children from online dangers. Unfortunately, there has been no actionable consensus in the scientific literature to suggest what “best practices” are supposed to look like. However, the decision to pay more attention to the data security features and a reporting system in the proposed regulation will go a long way: we will need layers of mechanisms to solve the underage use problem thoroughly.
[1] Yesidora, A. (2025, Jan 21). Komdigi akan atur media sosial untuk anak, ada pembatasan usia. Katadata. https://katadata.co.id/digital/teknologi/678f68c207030/komdigi-akan-atur-media-sosial-untuk-anak-ada-pembatasan-usia
[2] See Fruhlinger, J. (2021, Feb 8). COPPA explained: How this law protects children’s privacy. CSO. https://www.csoonline.com/article/570311/coppa-explained-how-this-law-protects-childrens-privacy.html
[3] There are plans to increase it further to 16. See Torices, A. (2024, Jun 5). Spanish government plans to raise minimum legal age for creating social media accounts from 14 to 16. SUR in English. https://www.surinenglish.com/spain/the-government-will-raise-the-minimum-age-20240605082629-nt.html
[4] BBC News Indonesia. (2025, Jan 20). Pemerintah akan batasi media sosial untuk anak – Aturan seperti apa yang cocok diterapkan di Indonesia?. https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/articles/cgmy9kkernyo
[5] Ritchie, H. (2024, Nov 29). Australia approves social media ban on under-16s. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89vjj0lxx9o
[6] NHK World-Japan. (2024, Nov 29). Why Australia is banning social media for children under 16. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3684/
[7] Esther, A. (2024, Oct 25). Norway to introduce a minimum age limit of 15 for social media use. Techstory. https://techstory.in/norway-to-introduce-a-minimum-age-limit-of-15-for-social-media-use/
[8] Le Monde. (2023, Jun 29). France requires parental consent for under-15s on social media. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/06/29/france-requires-parental-consent-for-under-15s-on-social-media_6039514_7.html#
[9] ABC News. (2023, Aug 2). New rules restrict smartphone, internet use for children and teens in China. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-02/new-rules-restrict-smartphone-internet-use-for-chinese-youth/102681432; See also Khmer Times. (2024, Dec 24). Vietnam enacts new internet rules for online accountability. https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501612858/vietnam-enacts-new-internet-rules-for-online-accountability/
[10] Zippo, P., & Pasquale, L. (2019). 2019 technical report: A review of age verification mechanism for 10 social media apps. CyberSafeIreland. https://doi.org/10.21427/6zc4-fd37
[11] BBC News Indonesia, Pemerintah akan batasi.
[12] BPS. (2024). Statistik telekomunikasi Indonesia 2023.
[13] See Pozniak, H. (2023). The content moderation conundrum. Engineering & Technology, 18(4). https://doi.org/10.1049/et.2023.0410
[14] There is no certainty to the proposition that human brains fully develop at age 25. The more accepted proposition is that brains keep developing even after supposed “maturation”, and people with so-called “undeveloped” brains are not to be deemed to always make unsound judgments. For a short discussion on neurological developments through adolescence, see Best, O., & Ban, S. (2021). Adolescence: physical changes and neurological development. British Journal of Nursing, 30(5), 272-275.
[15] Livingstone, S., & Sylwander, K. R. (2025). There is no right age! The search for age-appropriate ways to support children’s digital lives and rights. Journal of Children and Media, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2024.2435015
[16] Charmaraman, L., Lynch, A. D., Richer, A. M., & Grossman, J. M. (2022). Associations of early social media initiation on digital behaviors and the moderating role of limiting use. Computers in Human Behavior, 127, 107053. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.107053
[17] Barbovschi, M., Macháčková, H., & Ólafsson, K. (2015). Underage use of social network sites: It’s about friends. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(6), 328-332. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2014.0553
