Recent court rulings in the U.S. underscore that social media harms to children are driven by platform design choices, not just user content, highlighting a regulatory gap in GCC oversight that remains largely content-focused.
- GCC regulation mainly targets content, not platform design.
- UAE leads with new child digital safety law focusing on architecture.
- Design rules prioritize algorithm transparency and default child protections.
What happened
Recent court verdicts in New Mexico and California have established that harms to children on social media platforms stem from deliberate design choices rather than incidental user content. These legal outcomes have shifted regulatory focus, highlighting the necessity to address the architecture of platforms, such as algorithms and interface features, to effectively reduce harm.
Within the GCC region, current regulation has predominantly emphasized content oversight through licensing, takedown requests, and account restrictions. The United Arab Emirates, however, has recently enacted Federal Decree-Law No. 26 of 2025, which introduces regulatory frameworks around age verification, privacy defaults, child data protection, targeted advertising, and platform risk classification, marking a move toward regulating platform design.
Why it matters
The existing GCC focus on content moderation reflects historical limitations, including technical capability constraints and insufficient influence over global platforms’ underlying architectures. Content controls were operationally feasible via telecom infrastructure management and aligned with domestic governance priorities, but they fall short of preventing harms rooted in how platforms shape user engagement.
As GCC states have gained increased technical capacity and economic leverage, they are better positioned to demand accountability for platform design features that drive harmful outcomes. The recent U.S. rulings provide further incentive by demonstrating that platforms' internal evidence on design-related risks can empower regulators to require disclosures that support proactive oversight beyond reactive content takedowns.
What to watch next
Regulators in the GCC and beyond are expected to prioritize three key areas in advancing design-based social media accountability: algorithmic de-amplification to prevent harmful content loops, mitigation of addictive user experience elements like infinite scroll, and implementation of default safety settings protecting minors' privacy and data.
Effectiveness of these measures will depend on robust age verification systems and balancing privacy concerns. Ongoing developments include structured transparency obligations similar to those in the EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act, which could serve as models for GCC regulators seeking to integrate design accountability into digital policy frameworks.