Page 55 - EW February 2026

mediaries hosting ‘user- love — offshore tech publicly expressed disapproval of the
generated’ content. As giants are fiercely re- “addictive dopamine-driven feedback
such, they are obliged to sisting regulation. Es- loop” that most social media plat-
remove harmful content pecially Australia-type forms use.
only upon receiving a regulation that holds Against this backdrop of offshore
specific government or- them accountable for Big Tech titans cynically profiting
der. This provides safe harmful content up- from incrementally appropriating the
harbour to tech compa- loaded on their plat- mindshare of the world’s largest child
nies. The time has come forms. ‘X’, formerly and youth population and addict-
for tech companies to Dr. Pavan Duggal Twitter which has 25 ing them to gossip, narcissism and
be guided by stricter million users in India, mindless scrolling of video reels, the
regulations,” says Delhi-based Dr. has twice within two years, moved the May 2027 time window awarded by
Pavan Duggal, an advocate of the courts challenging the Union govern- the DPDP Act to megabucks corpo-
Supreme Court of India specialising ment’s powers to block, take down or rations to devise ways and means to
in cyber law, cybersecurity and emerg- censor content on its platform. install child protection safeguards in
ing technology law, who has authored An indicator of the downsides of their programs is too wide and inde-
201 books on cyber law and is advisor easy access to social media is that fensible. Through quick legislation of
to key UN agencies including Unesco many, if not all, Big Tech moguls who its Online Safety Amendment (Social
and UNCTAD. invented these platforms strictly reg- Media Age) Act, Australia has struck
Unsurprisingly, given the stakes ulate access of their own progeny to at the root of the problem and held
involved — snowballing addiction of them. Among them: Mark Zuckerberg Big Tech corporations accountable
the world’s largest child and youth of Meta that owns Facebook and Ins- for the content they upload on their
population to social media that facili- tagram; Bill Gates (Microsoft); Evan platforms. India’s BJP/NDA govern-
ment at the Centre needs to urgently
tates data mining (“the new oil”) that Spiegel (Snapchat). Former Facebook follow suit.
consumer products multinationals executive Chamath Palihapitiya has

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