"In Azerbaijan, individuals aged 16–18 will be allowed to use social media accounts with parental consent," Deputy Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Hasanov said during his speech at the plenary session titled "Intercultural Digital Future: Intercultural Digital Competence for Societies Entering the Digital and Artificial Intelligence Era" at the 7th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue held in Baku, APA reports.
The deputy minister stated that a law on children's safety on social media was adopted earlier this year.
"With this, Azerbaijan has become one of the countries that ban social media for children under the age of 16. Children aged 16–18 are allowed to use social media accounts only with parental consent."
Rashad Hasanov noted that children face various dangers in the digital world, including harmful content, addictive design, contact with strangers and other digital risks.
He emphasized that technology should serve children and that children should not become targets of the negative effects of technology.
Rashad Hasanov stated that one of the main criteria in Azerbaijan's digital development strategy and action plan for 2026–2028 is ensuring that digital services are accessible to every citizen, regardless of age, language or digital skills.
The deputy minister said that language is one of the main issues in this regard. According to him, Azerbaijan is working to develop artificial intelligence capabilities in its own language.
"We are developing these capabilities ourselves. The goal is not only to create language models but also to ensure that they help deliver public services," Rashad Hasanov noted.
According to him, the application of speech-to-text technologies in public services has begun, and the first digitalized services have been launched in the my.gov application. The number of digitalized services on the my.gov platform is planned to increase by the end of the year.
The deputy minister also emphasized that improving digital literacy is an important priority.
"We believe that every citizen should understand artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. This includes writing emails, recognizing fake news, detecting fraud and so on."
He added that several training programs are being implemented for various groups.
"One of these is the Digital Horizon program, which covers more than 25,000 civil servants from 275 institutions, and they are expected to participate in training sessions in the coming months."
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