Regulators in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations are being encouraged to expand their oversight of social media platforms beyond content moderation to include platform design, following recent legal rulings highlighting that harms to children on social media are influenced by design choices rather than just content.
While GCC countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have taken steps toward regulating design elements—particularly through the UAE’s Federal Decree-Law No. 26 of 2025 on Child Digital Safety, which mandates age verification, default privacy protections, limits on targeted advertising, and risk classification frameworks—other GCC members still largely maintain content-focused approaches. Qatar relies on cybercrime laws and awareness programs, and Kuwait uses existing regulations with limited emphasis on design accountability.
Shift from Content to Design Regulation
The current emphasis on content moderation in the GCC reflects historical technical limitations and regulatory priorities. Regulators had more direct control over content through infrastructure-based enforcement tools like takedown requests and account restrictions, while demanding changes to platform architecture, such as algorithms and user experience (UX) features, required greater technical capacity and negotiation leverage.
Recent legal decisions in the United States have underscored that social media companies hold internal evidence of design-driven harms, making disclosure and regulatory oversight of platform design more feasible. This development strengthens the case for GCC countries to pursue design-based mandates focused on preventing harm upstream through architectural accountability.
Key Regulatory Priorities
Experts advocate for GCC regulators to prioritize three main areas in design-based regulation:
- Algorithmic transparency and de-amplification: Requiring platforms to disclose how recommendation systems prioritize content to prevent harmful content loops, especially for children.
- Addictive user experience patterns: Addressing features such as infinite scroll and autoplay that encourage excessive engagement, by mandating risk assessments and mitigation efforts like usage prompts or engagement limits.
- Default safety settings for minors: Ensuring default protections including private accounts, restrictions on targeted advertising, and location-tracking limits, alongside effective age verification mechanisms.
These approaches align with international frameworks like the European Union’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act, which emphasize structured disclosures and risk assessments.
Emerging Regional Developments
Although movement toward design-based regulation is limited in some GCC countries, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have introduced legislative and regulatory initiatives incorporating these concepts. The UAE remains the most advanced with enforceable legislative frameworks addressing platform design harms.
There is potential for a coordinated GCC strategy to harmonize standards, enhance enforcement, and improve cross-border information sharing. Regional cooperation could leverage collective market influence to set binding expectations for design accountability, data transparency, and enforcement.
Why it matters
As children’s exposure to social media increases, design-driven harms such as addictive behaviors and harmful content amplification pose significant risks. A move to design-based regulation enables proactive prevention rather than reactive content takedowns. Strengthened oversight protects vulnerable users while aligning GCC platforms with emerging global accountability standards.
Improving technical capabilities and market leverage positions GCC regulators to exert meaningful influence over social media platform architectures. Without this shift, GCC countries risk lagging behind international norms and missing opportunities to shape the governance of online harms affecting youth.
Sources
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