DIGITAL CULTURE AND CHILD PROTECTION: AN ANALYSIS OF BRAZILIAN LEGISLATION

Abstract

This article sought to critically analyze contemporary Brazilian legislation on the protection of children and adolescents in digital environments, especially Law nº 15.211/2025, which established the Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent, and Decree nº 12.880/2026, examining the extent to which its provisions address the transformations that digital culture produces in childhood experience. This is a theoretical-philosophical study with a qualitative, bibliographic, and documentary approach, guided by the critical-dialectical perspective of Critical Theory, which links the contributions of Adorno (2022), Adorno e Horkheimer (1985), Debord (1997), Türcke (2010; 2016), and Larrosa (2002) to the field of children’s human rights. The results indicate that the legislation represents a significant advance by acknowledging risks linked to the architecture of digital environments, such as compulsive use, profiling, and manipulative practices, and by assigning responsibilities to technology providers. However, it does not yet fully ensure the preservation of the conditions that make childhood experience possible, since the enactment of legal norms does not, by itself, guarantee the realization of children’s human rights. The article concludes that protecting the child is not the same as protecting childhood, which requires an expanded conception of comprehensive protection, capable of integrating safety, privacy, health, participation, development, time, attention, experience, and autonomy.