Vietnam Proposes Age Limit on Social Media: Minors Under 16 Barred from Posting, Commenting

Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has proposed new regulations that would prohibit minors under the age of 16 from posting, commenting, or sharing content on social media platforms. The move is intended to strengthen the protection of children in the online environment. According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, Deputy Director of the Department of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information, under the proposed amendments to Decree 147/2024 on internet management, children under 16 would not be allowed to register for social media accounts independently. Account registration would require parental or guardian consent, with parents or guardians responsible for supervising their children's usage time and content. The draft regulation suggests that accounts belonging to children would be restricted from posting, commenting, interacting, or expressing emotions on social media, effectively limiting their usage to content consumption under parental supervision. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, expressed concerns about the proposed complete ban on interactive features for users under 16. Ms. Nguyen Thu Thao, Public Policy Director for Vietnam at Meta, argued that if children are only allowed to passively consume content, social media platforms would lose crucial behavioral signals needed to identify child users, potentially reducing the effectiveness of detection and protection measures. Thao also noted that such a ban could lead to children falsely declaring their age to continue using interactive features, thereby bypassing age-specific protective mechanisms. She suggested that a tiered approach, similar to measures adopted in many countries, would be more effective. This includes setting high default privacy settings, content filtering, usage time limits, and providing parental supervision tools, allowing children to benefit from a supervised online environment with appropriate safeguards. The Department of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information stated that the decree aims to create a favorable legal framework for the development of the cultural industry, particularly the gaming sector, promoting it in a professional and healthy direction. The amendments are also intended to update regulations on decentralization, administrative procedure simplification, and institutionalize directives on strengthening online information management and child protection in the context of digital transformation.