PIL in Delhi HC against ‘infinite scroll’, ‘autoplay’ in social media apps
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking an expert committee to examine and regulate 'engagement-maximising and addiction-causing' design features like infinite scroll and autoplay on social media platforms. The petitioner argues these features are architecturally designed to capture user attention and have been linked to mental health issues, especially among youth.
Why it matters
This PIL addresses growing concerns about social media addiction and its mental health impacts, particularly on young people, potentially leading to significant regulatory changes in how social media platforms are designed and operated in India.
A petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking the constitution of an expert committee to examine engagement-maximising and addiction-causing design features on social media platforms like infinite scroll and autoplay.
The public interest litigation (PIL) came up for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia.
Justice Karia, however, recused from hearing the plea, which will now be heard next week before another bench.
Petitioner Vikas Kathuria, a professor of law at BML Munjal University, 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.
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