Since its founding dawn, the United Arab Emirates has been built upon a great purpose: the development of the human being. This inspiring purpose has been embodied in the approach of its wise leadership, which has made the happiness and protection of society a foundational pillar of every development renaissance and national legislation. It is from this premise that the decision to regulate children's access to social media platforms has emerged — a decision that reflects this enlightened national approach and translates the highest care and continuing efforts to protect the state's true human wealth, and in particular its children and young people, who are the shield of the homeland and the generations of the future.
This national legislation has erected a formidable barrier protecting children from the dangers, threats, challenges, and storms that pervade social media platforms, out of a firm belief in the importance of childhood and its direct impact on shaping the future of generations. Children are a great trust that must be surrounded by care, awareness, and safeguarding, and must grow up in a safe and balanced environment that preserves their innate nature, nourishes their minds, and opens before them horizons of learning and creativity — far from anything that threatens their values or weakens their bond with their family, community, and homeland.
The importance of this decision is thus clear: it is a preventive step that protects our children from multiple dangers that extend well beyond excessive screen time to include the isolation and psychological pressures they may face, being drawn toward misleading content and alien ideas, or falling into the traps of blackmailers, bullies, and exploiters in the digital space. It also shields them from suspicious accounts and harmful content that may affect their natural development and their emotional and moral stability. In so doing, the decision enhances safety and reassurance within society and enables families to build bridges of meaningful communication and dialogue with their children, achieving sound upbringing and wholesome education.
This decision reflects the inspired strategic balance that the UAE maintains between modernity and authenticity, affirming its remarkable capacity to lead global digital transformation while adhering to enduring human and social values. The new regulations require global digital platforms to respect national laws, apply precise and reliable age-verification mechanisms, monitor non-compliant accounts, and take immediate action to ensure compliance. This asserts the state's full legislative sovereignty in the digital space, protects its citizens and residents from external dangers and cross-border alien phenomena, and confirms that the UAE places the safety of its children at the pinnacle of its sovereign, national, and civilisational priorities in building a truly safe knowledge society.
The decision stipulates that parental consent shall not be recognised as an exception to the prohibitions and restrictions imposed — a provision that confirms that protecting childhood and building future generations is a matter of societal security and a strategic national concern that transcends individual assessments and transient family decisions. This strengthens public trust in the state's legal and legislative system and deepens individuals' certainty that the wise leadership watches over them and surrounds their children with the utmost care. This provision aims to provide comprehensive protection for children, prevent cases of negligence, complacency, and yielding to the desires of the young, and entrench the principle of proactive protection that places the child's best interests above all other considerations — granting families a clear legal support that helps them regulate digital usage and prevents the electronic space from becoming an open door to negative influences that infiltrate minds and hearts in the absence of oversight, awareness, and guidance.
This makes clear the great role of the family in achieving the objectives of this national decision, and the warning it carries against the silent dangers that surround young people when they are left before electronic devices without controls. They then become prey to the algorithms of digital platforms, which aim at engagement and financial gain and disregard the cultural and moral specificities of peoples and societies, opening the door to anyone who wishes to spread whatever they want by all manner of attractive means — whether extremist ideology, alien behaviour, false information, incitement, or other manifestations of chaos in all its forms. This makes it imperative to fortify children against these surging waves of content and to nurture them with positive national values that strengthen their innate immunity and raise them according to correct standards of reception and benefit.
This decision reflects the UAE's far-sighted vision, which combines scientific and technological excellence with moral and ethical security, and makes the happiness of the individual and the preservation of their safety and stability its highest aim and supreme aspiration at all times.
In conclusion, we extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude to our wise leadership for this forward-looking, civilisational decision and for the noble paternal care that protects generations and enables them to achieve excellence in their present and their future.