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Rethinking about accountability for internet addiction: Who pushes? parents or the social media companies ? by Dr.Debarati Halder

For over a year now internet is being flooded with news of governments banning children under 16 years of age from using social media websites. First it was Australia, then countries like Indonesia  and France also decided to restrict children under 16 to use social media. This was followed by Karnataka in India to ban under 16 children from using social media.

The restrictive action is planned to improve mental and physical wellbeing of children. I am however not very happy with using the word “ban” by the governments in this case. The word carries heavy responsibility for the “banned” to stop doing something and  not to violate prohibitory orders by the authorities.  Can the child mind carry such a load when children have been accustomed with the “entertainment” platform since their babyhood? Infact if we go ahead for average calculation to understand how long GenZ  may have been using social media platforms, the recent verdict of a Los Angeles trial court can give a crystal clear answer: a young woman in her 20’s sued Meta and YouTube as prominent social media companies for making her addicted to the platforms. Court ordered social media giants to pay a hefty amount as compensation. She had been using them since she was 6. 14 years is more than a decade! 

Orkut, a popular social media platform was launched in 2004 and it made all of us, Gen x  and  Y quite addicted to it because it gave us chance to get connected to our long lost friends and make new friends whom we may not meet in real life. Orkut gave way to Facebook which later became a big fat Meta family. Many of us voluntarily led our children to access Orkut and then Facebook in the past 20 years.

If we lookback, there are three issues that may attract the legal lenses :

  • Parental liability : Around 20 years back the social media platforms were designed to “access friends”. This lead to multiple privacy problems where women were the worst sufferers. Everyone wanted to be friends in their own way and some decided to ‘consume’ women for their own sexual gratification. Social media platforms were not much ready to give space to children as users. Therefore, almost all US based social media companies allowed children who are above 13 to use the platforms. But hold on.. many parents across the globe had already given access to their under 13 children to their devices and the social media platforms. Children knew how to scroll, how to read a post and also how to ‘safely’ and ‘secretly’ use parent’s profiles. Social media companies developed their policies to provide parental control, restrictions for accessing privately shared images and contents and reporting mechanisms.

Who is responsible for making children addicted to the moving screen objects, sounds and entertainment? Parents, juridical personalities (social media companies) or the society as a whole?

  •  State as de-facto faulty guardian: Who gives the ‘banning’ order? The State! Have we ever considered how governments are in the net-worked world now? Every department of the government has a Facebook, Instagram, X handle. Apparently whenever anyone wants to lodge a grievance against public services, it is visible not only to the public at large, the intermediary may also become a platform where certain data may rest.  Given this condition, the State has to be extremely cautious about data shared on the platform, with the platform and the security and safety of the users. Digital connectivity enables all including children to access information and share information. This is an extremely positive tool for transparent governance.  But when social media handles of different departments are considered as gateways for accessing e-governance, State needs to be extremely thoughtful to allow or ban them for children.

Who takes the accountability for letting people expose location data and other vulnerable data in the name of appreciation of talents, grievance redressal mechanism ? is it the State? Or the social media websites or the users (some of whom had been using social media platforms for a long time since they were young?)

  • Design of the websites: Now this is the most interesting part! Social media websites are notoriously ‘addictive’ because they have developed such a great algorithm mechanism that even our great astrologers may fail. The social media companies engage millions of software developers and computer engineers who enable the system to read choices of people: be it a political content, lifestyle related content, songs and dances, infotainments, updates about products or tourism destinations or scientific evolutions. Over 20+ years companies like Meta, YouTube, Google have provided us updated ‘customized’  viewer’s choice. Some have also developed a cautionary side doze in the form of calculated screen time. This has generated a huge business. The more the content is ‘watched’, the more the creator earns money. The company shares the revenue as profit for the content creator.  These companies grew up learning about mental health of users and developing tools to measure emotions of users. They developed parental control mechanisms, self-harm monitoring mechanisms and privacy protection mechanisms. Nothing actually proved to be ‘everlasting best mechanism.’ Social media companies have always used immunity veil to escape third party liability. Nonetheless, these companies have engaged with practitioners, researchers from law and other streams to develop their policies against misuse of the platforms, strengthening safety of women and children and men. But they have also found unique legal ways to escape the liability of risking mental health of users especially when they made us the users accept our own liability to use the platforms cautiously with all the safety ‘gears’ of the platforms through their click wrap contracts.    

Meta and YouTube are contesting the Los Angeles court verdict. Even if they pay the compensation and damages for creating ‘addictive products’ can we really remain self-controlled? can our children be free from internet –addiction ? we cannot blame a single stakeholder.

 It must be a collective responsibility of all: the parents, schools, State and the   tech companies to make our and our children’s lives comfortable, happy and active in the internet era. We must not forget the old saying : it takes a village to raise a child. That ‘village’ in today’s world includes all stakeholders mentioned above.

Cite it as Halder Debarati (2026) “Rethinking about accountability for internet addiction:  Who pushes? parents or the social media companies” Published in https://internetlegalstudies.com/2026/03/29/rethinking-about-accountability-for-internet-addiction-who-pushes-parents-or-the-social-media-companies-by-dr-debarati-halder/ on 29-03-2026

cyber crime against women, Cyber Law

Parties to digital communication: Know who is the addressee and whether she is a victim too. By Dr.Debarati Halder

Image owned by Debarati Halder

Introduction

Often we get to hear about digital arrest, stalking, workplace sexual harassment related communication, online bomb hoax and so on. If we analyse the nature of the above mentioned offences, we may see some are targeted to specific individuals (like threatening or hurling intimidating comments, bullying), some are targeted towards the State (consider bomb hoax cases where the sender generally shares information about places where bomb is kept or place which may fall within the vicinity of the bomb blast). If we look at the communications thus received, we may see that the recipient is the victim and the sender is the accused. But this does not mean that it is only the sender who may be considered as the sole accused or the recipient is the only victim. Criminal cases on offensive digital communication may often fail due to huge lack of understanding about the concepts of recipients and senders and the other concerned stakeholders in this regard.

Let us now analyse two case studies:

  1. In April, 2025 Thiruvananthapuram airport received bomb threat via email. Reportedly several hotels in Kerala, a popular tourist destination for its natural scenic beauty in the south western coastal region in India, received emails containing bomb threats.
  2. In  a news report published in August, 2025, Mumbai police rescued  a 61 year old woman who was reportedly subjected to digital arrest and transferred large sums of money to fraudsters.

The recipient in the first case was the airport. In the second case, the woman is the recipient of communications that made her to believe that if she does not transfer the amount, she would be in legal trouble. While in the latter case,    the victim is a single female recipient, in the former, the mail would have been received by an individual who may have been handling the official mail id of the airport, which is a government entity. But in this case, the individual who opened the mail and read the mail is not the actual recipient. As the mail was received by the airport authorities in its official email id, legally, the recipient would be the Thiruvananthapuram airport authority.

Addressee as explained by Information Technology Act, 2000(amended by 2008)

Who now becomes the addressee- ‘victim’? a clear reading of S.2(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008) would clear doubts in this regard.

This provision defines the term addressee in the following words:

“Addressee means a person who is intended by the originator to receive the electronic record but does not include any intermediary.”

Essentially the origin of the concept of addressee here can be attributed to Indian Contract Act, 1872 which throws light on completion of communication of a proposal under S.4 : it says

The communication of a proposal is complete when it comes to the knowledge of the person to whom it is made. The communication of an acceptance is complete, — as against the proposer, when it is put in a course of transmission to him, so as to be out of the power of the acceptor; as against the acceptor, when it comes to the knowledge of the proposer.  The communication of a revocation is complete, — as against the person who makes it, when it is put into a course of transmission to the person to whom it is made, so as to be out of the power of the person who makes it; as against the person to whom it is made, when it comes to his knowledge.

The acceptor is the one who receives the communication and has authority to act upon the acceptance or rejection of the proposal made through the communication. This “acceptor” is the recipient and the addressee of the communication.

The term “Addressee” under the S2(b) of the Information Communication Act (Amended in 2008) shall therefore include the direct recipient who can take action on the communication him/herself, or the recipient who may act on the communication on behalf of the organization as he may have been authorized to take any decision. Addressee also necessarily include the organization that has received the communication through its email address or any other communication handle that are operated by authorized stakeholder.

Noticeably, intermediary would not be considered as an addressee even though it provides services to receive, store send messages on electronic platforms.

When addressee becomes a victim?

Addressee therefore can become a victim of offensive communication if the said communication carries threat, hatred, intimidation, misleading or fraudulent in nature or is a part of defamatory statement. Addressee him/her/itself  can also have locus standi in the courts for seeking justice if the communication falls within the parameter of offensive communication.  In cases where the addressee is a minor or have a juridical personality, the parents, guardians and authorized stakeholders /officers can have locus standi. But there remains an exception: if the addressee is a minor and is subjected online sexual offences or offensive communication that creates threat, hatred etc, he/she can also directly lodge complaints with the criminal justice machineries. The courts in such cases may allow the parents and guardians to assist and represent her in specific cases.

In all the above cases, addressee however also retains the right to be rescued/rehabilitated/compensated directly for the offensive communications received by him/her/it.

Concluding remarks

Please note: if you are addressee who may have received any offensive communication, or you may be knowing an addressee  who wants to communicate to reporting authorities of criminal justice machinery or grievance redressal cells, please contact the nearest police station or lodge your complaints through www.cybercrimes.gov.nic  and do not communicate directly with the sender of the offensive communication.

Please note: If you want to use this content, please cite it as Halder Debarati (August, 2025). Parties to digital communication: know who is the addressee and whether she is  a victim too. Published in https://internetlegalstudies.com/2025/08/17/parties-to-digital-communication-know-who-is-the-addressee-and-whether-she-is-a-victim-too-by-dr-debarati-halder/ on 17-08-2025