This shift matters beyond US borders. For South Africa, where children are deeply embedded in global online ecosystems, it raises urgent questions about responsibility, regulation, and protection.
Digital access has transformed learning and social life for South African children, but it has also widened pathways to exploitation, harmful content, disrupted sleep, and mental health issues.
A Unicef study shows that more than 95% of South African children have regular internet access, with 70% using the internet without parental consent.
In the absence of digital safeguards, one-third of South African children face risks of online exploitation, abuse, or violence.
This is not a challenge that can be addressed by parents or policing alone.
Online child safety is a public health ethics and regulatory issue that South Africa has yet to confront.
When technology outpaces protection
The Film and Publication Board has warned that child sexual abuse material is rising online, driven partly by artificial intelligence (AI) and encrypted platforms.
These tools make harmful material easier to create, harder to trace and faster to spread, undermining traditional enforcement mechanisms.
Recent cases illustrate these dangers clearly.
Teenagers abroad are suing Elon Musk’s xAI after its Grok chatbot generated pornographic images by altering their photographs.
Demonstrating how AI image tools can be weaponised against children.
Whistleblower disclosures and litigation abroad have revealed how platform algorithms amplify harmful content, reward outrage, and encourage compulsive use.
They shape behaviour and wellbeing, particularly for children, and contribute to addiction-like patterns of use with limited local oversight.
These same technologies are available in South Africa, yet accountability and redress remain unclear when harm occurs.
Global lessons
Governments elsewhere have already implemented measures to mitigate the risks associated with online use.
Australia’s under-16 social media bans and the United Kingdom’s consultations and pilot interventions, including curfews, time caps and access restrictions, reflect growing recognition that voluntary platform measures are insufficient.
Early evidence from Australia suggests that bans reduce logged-in use but do not eliminate access.
This begs the need for layered safeguards that combine regulation, education, technical safeguards, and enforcement rather than relying on single fixes.
Public health ethics issue
Online harm is not only a matter of content moderation or criminal enforcement, but it is also a public health ethics concern.
An emerging study by Reha & Premalatha found that sleep disruption, anxiety, compulsive use, and emotional distress are increasingly recognised consequences of unregulated digital environments.
These are risks that children cannot reasonably assess, consent to, or avoid, thus reflecting systematic vulnerabilities rather than individual failings.
An effective online safety policy must therefore include prevention measures embedded in health and education systems, rather than relying solely on parental supervision or post-harm remedies.
Protecting children’s cyber safety
The landmark verdict found Meta and YouTube negligent for designing platforms that contributed to severe mental health harm in a young user by encouraging compulsive use.
The jury awarded $6m in damages, 70% to Meta and 30% to YouTube, marking a major step toward holding platforms accountable for addictive design and its impact on children’s mental health.
South Africa must move beyond guidance toward enforceable regulation, including duty-of-care standards, stronger enforcement, and health-focused prevention in digital policy.
Protecting children online is a shared responsibility, but shared responsibility cannot mean diluted accountability.
The digital age should expand childhood, not endanger it.
