Azerbaijan weighs social media safeguards for children, presidential aide says

Azerbaijan is considering measures to regulate children’s access to social media, inspired in part by Australia’s approach, a senior aide to President Ilham Aliyev said on Saturday, arguing governments should move faster to protect young people from the risks posed by digital platforms.

Speaking at the Shusha Global Media Forum, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to President Ilham Aliyev and head of the presidential administration’s foreign policy department, said governments should not wait years before introducing safeguards against the harmful effects of social media on children and adolescents.

“This is not a debate about restricting technology. It’s about protecting childhood and ensuring that digital innovation develops together with digital responsibility,” Hajiyev said.

He said Azerbaijan, like a number of other countries, had been inspired by Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book The Anxious Generation, noting that Australia had already introduced legislation restricting children’s access to social media.

Hajiyev said governments should strike a balance between innovation, parental responsibility and freedom of expression while protecting children from harmful content, cyberbullying, addictive algorithms and psychological risks.

He also called for international rules governing artificial intelligence, saying technological advances were outpacing regulation.

“We are making the same mistakes with regard to artificial intelligence,” he said. “No one can stop technological development and science, but there should be ethical norms, and there should also be certain regulations.”

Separately, Hajiyev said Azerbaijan had become a target of international disinformation campaigns and accused CNN of publishing inaccurate reports about the country without providing Baku with a right of reply. He did not cite specific reports or provide details.

N. Tebrizli