Platform Owners Face New Duties as Approval Slips

Mexico published a decree on 14 October requiring digital platforms to restrict harmful material for minors. The same day, a MetricsMx poll put President Claudia Sheinbaum’s approval at 69.1%, the lowest of 16 weekly readings since 1 July. The decree gives platform operators new duties but sets no penalties for now.

The poll found 78.9% of respondents favoured requiring platforms to protect children and teenagers from violent content and harassment. Under the decree, platforms can’t allow minors to access or receive recommendations for content promoting harassment, sexual abuse, hate speech, violent extremism, pornography, suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.

The Decree’s Requirements

Platforms must check users’ ages beyond relying on self-declarations, immediately remove offending accounts and content, and make the strictest privacy settings the default for new accounts. They must also keep a contact point available to prosecutors 24 hours a day.

The government published the decree in Mexico’s official gazette on 14 October, after presenting its text on 9 October. Platforms have 30 calendar days from publication to document and report their actions, setting the deadline around 13 November. For now, the decree imposes no penalties.

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, but said the companies hadn’t made public statements. The decree itself names no company.

Approval and Public Opinion

MetricsMx surveyed 800 adults on 14 October through automated calls, a recorded voice and keypad responses. The poll weighted results by gender, age and state, and reported a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 points at 95% confidence. SDP Noticias published it on Monday 19 October, without giving a response rate or the exact question wording.

Of respondents, 57.7% approved of Sheinbaum a lot and 11.4% approved somewhat. Another 19.6% disapproved, 7.9% were neutral and 3.4% didn’t know. Approval stood 1.3 points below the 30 September reading and 6.2 points below the 29 July reading. The report said the 1.3-point dip fell within the poll’s margin of error.

On online protection, 67.7% very much agreed and 11.2% somewhat agreed that the government should require platforms to protect minors from violent content and harassment. Another 15.7% disagreed. A separate MetricsMx poll on 5 August found 71.2% named parents or guardians as chiefly responsible for protecting minors on social networks, while 9.2% named platform owners and 3.1% named the government. The October question differed, so the results aren’t a before-and-after test.

Limits of the Polls and Rules

The report said it wasn’t known who commissioned and paid for the MetricsMx series. Its results appeared in SDP Noticias reports, not on metricsmx.com, which redirects to the consultancy Metrics.

Other firms reported different approval figures, using different questions and polling at different times. El Financiero found 70% approval and 30% disapproval in a telephone poll of 800 adults conducted between 10 and 20 September. Mitofsky put Sheinbaum at 72% for September, as reported by Político MX.

El Financiero also found 60% viewed the government’s handling of USMCA negotiations favourably, up from 56% in August. Favourable views of the economy stood at 49%, while 27% viewed security favourably. The poll report gives no figures on platform profits or the cost of complying with the decree.