Children and Social Networks: Main Directions of Legal Regulation

The article presents a brief overview of the main directions of legal regulation using the social networks from the standpoint of ensuring proper protection of the children’s rights and legitimate interests. The objective of the scientific article is to highlight the main arguments “for” and “against” giving children the opportunity to use social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. Comparative legal review and comparative legal analysis that were used by author allow identifying two directions of legal regulation: determining the procedure for a child’s access to a social network and the procedure for its use by a child. The legal issues concerning the need to introduce an age threshold, special requirements for the registration of a child’s account, and the development and legislative implementation of special safety standards for children’s accounts aimed at minimizing online risks are proposed for further discussion. In conclusion, the author proposes combining these methods: since the doctrine and current legislation consider a child to be a full-fledged subject of law that implies the need to retain his access to social networks, but with additional guarantees to ensure the protection of the child when using a social network.