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A Public Interest Litigation has been filed before the Delhi High Court seeking constitution of an expert committee to examine the “engagement-maximising” and “addiction-causing” design architecture employed by social media platforms, including infinite scroll, autoplay, algorithmically curated feeds, persistent notifications and “likes”.

The plea flags impact of such designs and features on the mental health of youngsters and seeks compensation from Meta, Google, Telegram, X Corp and Snapchat for being designed in a way of being addictive and for causing mental health issues to the young users.

The matter was listed today before a division bench comprising Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia.

However, Justice Karia recused from hearing the plea and the same is now listed before another bench on next Wednesday.

During his practice, Justice Karia has represented Meta (formerly Facebook) before various courts in several high profile matters.

The petition has been filed by Dr. Vikas Kathuria, a Law Professor. The respondents named are the Union Ministries of Electronics and Information Technology, Women and Child Development, Education and Health and Family Welfare, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), as well as Meta Platforms, Google LLC, Snap, X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

Kathuria states that his concern is not the content disseminated through social media but the underlying design of the platforms, which, according to him, is “engineered to capture, retain and repeatedly re-stimulate users' attention.”

The plea identifies infinite scroll, autoplay, short-duration videos such as reels, personalised feeds, notification systems and variable-reward engagement metrics such as “likes”.

Kathuria submits that Indian law presently does not specifically regulate addictive platform architecture as distinct from unlawful or harmful content.

The petition refers to a “mental-health crisis” among the 15-24 age group associated with anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, cyberbullying stress and compulsive scrolling. The PIL also cites international developments concerning regulation of addictive social-media design.

Kathuria has said that the PIL does not seek a blanket prohibition on social media but seeks regulation of specific engagement-maximising features through calibrated measures.

The plea seeks a direction to the Union Government to constitute an expert committee to examine engagement-maximising design features and recommend evidence-based design standards and safeguards.

It also seeks directions to restrict, prohibit or regulate such design features as well as compensation from the social-media companies for alleged harm caused by such design features.

Title: DR VIKAS KATHURIA v. Union of India & Ors

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