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Child online safety regulation is fragmenting across Asia-Pacific as governments adopt different approaches to safeguard children from online harm. Australia’s under-16 social media restrictions have become an influential reference point globally, prompting countries in the region, including Malaysia and Indonesia, to pursue similar age-based controls. At the same time, there is growing interest in safety by design measures, particularly in Singapore where there is greater emphasis on safer, age-appropriate platform design. As these frameworks move from policy development to implementation, governments face practical questions around feasibility, proportionality, and enforcement. For business, this creates opportunities to shape emerging regulation by providing country-specific evidence on what works, contributing technical expertise on implementation, and convening governments, researchers, educators and civil society to develop practical and effective solutions.
There is particular momentum around age-based restrictions. Australia has become the region's principal reference point following its legislation restricting children under 16 from accessing certain social media platforms, prompting governments globally to consider similar restrictions. Malaysia has introduced a minimum age of 16 for accounts on licensed social media platforms, driven by political pressure to address online harms affecting children, including cyberbullying, scams and sexual abuse, with age verification expected to rely on government-issued records or documents. Indonesia has similarly restricted under-16s from platforms assessed as high-risk, following concerns over digital addiction, harmful content, cyberbullying and online fraud targeting children. Implementation in both markets remains at an early stage: Malaysia is still working through the technical and privacy challenges of age verification, while Indonesian platforms are undertaking self-assessments to determine their risk classification.
At the same time, governments are increasingly looking beyond blanket access restrictions to enabling safer access. This has accelerated interest in safety by design measures, with rapidly growing scrutiny on how platform design choices increase or reduce risk of user harm. Singapore is deliberately pursuing this approach: ministers have argued that lasting change depends less on keeping children off platforms, but on helping them develop healthier online habits. Digital Development and Information Minister Josephine Teo compared digital services to buildings, where developers are expected to ensure fire and structural safety before anyone enters, arguing that platforms should similarly bear responsibility for designing safety into their services from the outset. In practice, Singapore is considering extending age assurance requirements from app stores to social media services, alongside proposals to restrict features such as direct messaging, infinite scrolling and autoplay for younger users. At the same time, it has not ruled out blocking access to platforms that fail to meet child safety standards for under-18s, illustrating how different measures are increasingly being pursued in parallel.
Underlying these different approaches are distinct domestic political, social and regulatory dynamics. In each market, the direction of policy is shaped by a combination of political considerations, media and public sentiment, and the influence of regulators, civil society and other stakeholders. South Korea illustrates this clearly: politicians and senior officials are highly responsive to public opinion, which is itself often shaped through media coverage by civil society, victims’ and youth groups, and academic experts. For example, Open Net Korea and Cultural Action previously successfully campaigned for the abolition of the Game Shutdown Law, an experience that has also made Korean policymakers more attentive to questions of effectiveness and proportionality when considering blanket restrictions. These market-specific factors mean that regulatory fragmentation will be an enduring feature of the operating landscape for business.
As governments move from legislation to implementation, the next phase will be shaped by practical questions of feasibility, proportionality, and enforcement.
The first test will be whether age assurance measures can be implemented in a way that is both technically effective and proportionate. A key question remains over whether it will be possible for digital services to obtain sufficient certainty over user’s ages and to prevent circumvention by underage users, while minimising inadvertent impacts on user safety, privacy, and freedom of expression. Australia’s experience is already demonstrating that age-based restrictions are complex to implement and may push young people towards less visible or less regulated online environments, where harms are more difficult to detect and address. Malaysia has similarly acknowledged the challenges of enforcement, including the ease with which children may bypass age restrictions through VPNs, third-party identities and other workarounds.
A second test will be the extent to which regulatory capacity keeps pace with regulatory frameworks now in development. As governments contemplate more sophisticated obligations – from reviewing platform risk assessments and auditing safety-by-design measures to overseeing increasingly complex algorithmic systems – the demands placed on regulators will grow significantly. Effective oversight will require specialised technical expertise, sustained supervisory resources and new regulatory capabilities that many authorities across Asia-Pacific are still developing. Making regulation work in practice will be especially challenging when regulatory frameworks are adopted wholesale from other jurisdictions, such as the EU or UK, whose regulators may be much better resourced.
A third test will be how effectively regulatory frameworks can operate across borders. As governments develop their own online safety frameworks in parallel, cross-border digital services risk facing overlapping or even conflicting requirements around age thresholds, verification standards and platform design obligations. A key question concerns whether governments can implement frameworks that achieve their domestic policy objectives without creating unnecessary duplication, conflicting requirements or obstacles for digital services to scale across borders.
As governments evaluate the effectiveness of new child online safety measures, businesses have an opportunity to contribute evidence on what works in practice and what unintended consequences may emerge. This includes generating implementation case studies, commissioning user research and focus groups with parents and children, and undertaking economic modelling of compliance costs and behavioural impacts. This evidence will make theoretical questions of feasibility and proportionality more concrete, while helping politicians to understand the real-world impact of different interventions on their constituents.
Recent debates in Indonesia already illustrate the emergence of a richer evidence base around social media age bans, combining evidence on the effectiveness of access restrictions, their unintended consequences – including the displacement of young users to less regulated online environments – and public opinion from parents, children and civil society. Companies that can credibly bring together these insights to demonstrate what works – and what does not – will be better placed to shape future policies. Crucially, while APAC governments are closely watching international developments, locally generated evidence will carry the greatest weight.
As child online safety regulation becomes more sophisticated, so too will the technical solutions needed to comply with it. Leading technology companies are already moving beyond traditional government affairs engagement by bringing engineers, product managers, trust and safety specialists and operations leads into discussions with policymakers.
This allows businesses to help regulators understand what is technically feasible in practice – for example, the accuracy and privacy implications of different age assurance technologies, or the user experience trade-offs involved in restricting features such as personalised recommendations. It also enables businesses to demonstrate operational commitment and practical implementation experience, rather than simply articulating policy positions. Companies that do so will have greater credibility and influence as regulatory frameworks move towards implementation.
Platform regulation alone cannot deliver better child safety outcomes. Many of the underlying challenges – including digital literacy, parental engagement, child protection, education and enforcement – sit across multiple ministries and stakeholders. To better shape more holistic and impactful approaches, businesses must move beyond bilateral regulatory engagement and convene the wider child online safety ecosystem, bringing together governments, educators, researchers and civil society to identify where policy and governance gaps are limiting more effective collaboration.
As child online safety debates become increasingly interconnected across Europe and Asia-Pacific, businesses also have an opportunity to encourage productive learning between regions. This can help governments understand not only what has worked elsewhere, but also the implementation challenges and unintended consequences of different regulatory approaches, reducing the risk of poorly adapted policy ideas being replicated across jurisdictions.
Recent discussions, such as TikTok's participation alongside Singapore's Media Literacy Council at NUS Homecoming, reflect this growing recognition that child online safety is a shared societal responsibility. Businesses that proactively convene stakeholders to address practical barriers to collaboration – such as fragmented digital literacy efforts or limited parental engagement – while facilitating cross-regional exchange and developing shared recommendations that strengthen national child online safety strategies, will be well positioned to establish themselves as trusted partners to governments.
Looking ahead, regulatory fragmentation will remain a defining feature of the child online safety landscape in Asia-Pacific. Businesses that help build the evidence base, support regulators with practical expertise, and convene the wider child online safety ecosystem will be best placed to help shape the development and implementation of emerging regulation.
This blog was written by Ewan Lusty, Partner, Ethan Teo, Manager, and Anjalie Thomas, Consultant. Ewan, Ethan and Anjalie are based in Singapore. Ewan previously worked in the UK Government on the development of the Online Safety Act and has since spent nearly seven years at Flint advising leading global technology companies on online and child safety issues across Asia-Pacific and Europe. Ethan previously worked on Singapore’s national digital identity system at the Smart Nation Group under the Prime Minister’s Office, and on online safety and content issues at Twitter and Carousell. At Flint, he has led work assessing the online safety landscape across APAC, with a particular focus on child safety, age assurance, intermediary liability and emerging measures such as social media bans. Anjalie advises clients on technology policy and regulation across Asia-Pacific, drawing on previous experience at Bloomberg and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.