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Geneva: Making the digital world safe for children is an urgent priority, the United Nations said Friday, adding that those responsible for online harm must be held to account.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said states had to force tech giants to embed child safety, and said child harm was the direct result of business practices and design choices.
"The digital world that connects children to learning, community, and creativity also exposes them to real risks to their safety, privacy, and wellbeing," Turk said in a statement.
"Online harms to kids' safety, privacy and wellbeing are not innate or inevitable; they result from design choices and business practices that undermine safety, including addictive design features, such as infinite scroll, autoplay, and persistent notifications from apps.
"Enhancing protection of children online is an urgent priority that we need to make sure not only gets done -- but that it gets done right," he added.
The UN high commissioner for human rights called for tougher measures by countries and tech firms to make online platforms safe places for children, through better regulation, oversight and accountability.
"Blanket social media bans are not a one-off panacea," Turk added.
"Simply limiting access to platforms that remain unsafe cannot stand as the endpoint in effectively protecting children."
He called for platforms to be made safer by design and ensure that data is protected, while "those responsible for harm can held to account".
