Sheinbaum Slips to 69.1% as Online Child Decree Lands

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s approval rating fell to 69.1% in a MetricsMx telephone poll taken on 14 October, the lowest of 16 weekly readings since 1 July. SDP Noticias published the result on Monday 19 October. The same survey found that 78.9% of respondents want digital platforms required to protect children and teenagers from violent content and harassment.

The Numbers

Still high. But sliding. Among those surveyed, 57.7% approved of Sheinbaum a lot and 11.4% approved somewhat, while 19.6% disapproved, 7.9% were neutral and 3.4% didn’t know. Her rating stood at 69.4% on 7 October and 70.4% on 30 September. It reached 70.9% on 1 July and 75.3% on 29 July. The latest figure sits 1.3 points below the 30 September reading and 6.2 points below the 29 July peak. The report said the 1.3-point dip falls within the poll’s margin of error, so it doesn’t prove a trend by itself.

Other pollsters paint a similar picture. El Financiero found 70% approval and 30% disapproval in a telephone poll of 800 adults conducted between 10 and 20 September, while Mitofsky put her at 72% for September, as Político MX reported. The report cautioned that the firms asked different questions at different times. El Financiero also found that 60% viewed the government’s handling of USMCA negotiations favourably, up from 56% in August. That compares with favourable views of the economy at 49% and security at just 27%.

The Decree

On 14 October, the government published a decree on safe digital environments for children and teenagers in the Diario Oficial de la Federación, Mexico’s official gazette. Officials presented the text on 9 October. It bars platforms from allowing minors to access or receive recommendations for content promoting harassment, sexual abuse, hate speech, violent extremism, pornography, suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.

Platforms must use age checks that go beyond a user’s own declaration, immediately remove offending accounts and content, set the strictest privacy settings by default for new accounts, and maintain a 24-hour contact point for prosecutors. The decree sets no penalties for now. It gives platforms 30 calendar days from 14 October to document and report their actions, a window ending around 13 November.

Sheinbaum called the rules mandatory and said a law with sanctions would follow if platforms failed to comply. On 13 October, she said platforms “totally agreed,” Infobae México reported. El Informador listed Meta, Microsoft, Apple, TikTok, Google, X and Huawei as willing to implement the decree, though the report said it found no public statements from those companies. The decree itself names no company.

Who Bears Responsibility?

The poll question on platform duties doesn’t tell the whole story. On 5 August, the same pollster found that 71.2% named parents or guardians as chiefly responsible for protecting minors on social networks. Just 9.2% named platform owners and 3.1% named the government. The October question was worded differently, so the figures aren’t a before-and-after test. Still, that earlier result shows where many Mexicans place primary responsibility.

In the October survey, 67.7% very much agreed and 11.2% somewhat agreed that the government should require platforms to protect minors, while 15.7% disagreed. MetricsMx surveyed 800 adults using automated calls, a recorded voice and keypad responses, weighted by gender, age and state, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 points at 95% confidence. SDP Noticias didn’t publish a response rate or the exact question wording. The report said it isn’t known who commissioned and paid for the MetricsMx series, whose results appeared in SDP Noticias reports rather than on metricsmx.com, which redirects to the consultancy Metrics.

School Violence Behind the Push

Sheinbaum tied the decree to school violence on 9 October, citing four recent cases. One ended in a teacher’s death and showed signs of contact through social networks, according to the presidency’s bulletin. On 1 October, the Coahuila state prosecutor’s office said the deputy head of a secondary school in Torreón had been killed and two former pupils, both 18, were detained.

Markets Weigh In

On Polymarket, a contract on whether Sheinbaum would be out as president by 31 December stood at about 4 cents for Yes at 3:36 p.m. ET on Monday 19 October, roughly a 4% chance. The best bid was 3.7 cents and the best ask 4.7 cents, with about US$39,300 traded. The report described these as bets, not polls, and noted that the contract tracks whether she remains in office, not her popularity.

Mexico, the United States’ southern neighbour and a partner in the USMCA trade pact, has been led by Sheinbaum, of the governing Morena party, since 1 October 2024—two years as of 20 October 2026. A 2025 survey estimate cited in the decree put Mexico’s internet users at 104.9 million. The Rio Times ranked Mexico second of 14 in its Latin America Power Index, with 71.4 points in the October 2026 edition. Another poll found that 67.0% said Sheinbaum should attend the Ibero-American Summit that Spain hosts in Madrid on 4 and 5 November, while 12.2% said she should not.

Why This Matters:

A president with roughly 69% approval has room to act, and she’s using it. The decree creates binding duties for platforms serving a market of 104.9 million internet users, yet sets no penalties and names no company, leaving enforcement to a promised future law. That raises practical questions about compliance costs, age-verification mechanics and how far regulators can reach before sanctions arrive. Parents, not the state, were named most often as responsible for kids online in the earlier poll, a reminder that public support for rules doesn’t erase that instinct. The 13 November reporting window will show whether voluntary cooperation delivers or Mexico moves toward penalties. Investors watching USMCA talks will also note that trade handling polls better than the economy or security.