The Delhi High Court on Wednesday (September 16, 2026) asked the Centre to respond on whether it was contemplating formulating a policy to regulate addiction-causing design features on social media platforms like infinite scroll and autoplay.
It asked Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma to take instructions on the issue. Mr. The counsel for the Centre and certain social media platforms also took objection to the maintainability of the petition in view of some orders from the Supreme Court and high courts which refused to entertain petitions on a similar issue.
The plea said the concern assumes significance in the Indian context as statistics reveal that Indian youths aged 18-24 spend more than an average of 120 minutes daily on social media. The plea sought the court’s direction to the Central Government and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to restrict, prohibit, or regulate the use of these features. (Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104, Tele-MANAS 14416. and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050)
A bench of Justice Nitin Wasudeo Sambre and Justice Amit Sharma said it would hear a PIL seeking the constitution of an expert committee to examine engagement-maximising and addiction-causing design features on social media platforms after three weeks. Sharma said that it would be in the domain of the policymakers to consider some of the issues raised in the plea and suggested that the petitioner could submit a representation to the government. Petitioner Vikas Kathuria, a professor of law, said the fulcrum of the issue is not what content social media platforms carry, but how such platforms are architecturally designed to cause addiction through infinite scroll, autoplay, algorithmically curated and personalised feeds, notification systems, and variable-reward engagement metrics, such as “likes”, to capture, retain and repeatedly re-stimulate the attention of the user. It has been clinically proven that long hours on social media are linked to suicide and depression among adolescents, the petition said.
