Internet & Online Safety - Mexico

The new Ley en Materia de Telecomunicaciones y Radiodifusión (DOF 16 July 2025) replaced the 2014 law, abolished the IFT and created the Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones and the Agencia de Transformación Digital. It legally defines 'digital platforms' and imposes some obligations (e.g., a ban on selling ad space to foreign governments, with fines of 2%–5% of platform revenue), but is not a general content-moderation/online-safety code.

The draft Article 109, which would have let the digital-transformation agency temporarily block digital platforms for regulatory non-compliance without a mandatory court order, was eliminated from the final law in May 2025 after criticism from civil-society groups (R3D, Article 19, Fundar) that it enabled censorship. The enacted law contains no such administrative blocking power.

Under USMCA Article 19.17, Mexico adopted Section-230-style intermediary safe harbors with a 'notice-and-takedown' system, introduced into the Federal Copyright Law in July 2020. Critics note Mexico's implementation is stricter than required—providers must honor copyright takedown demands or face fines—raising over-removal/free-expression concerns. There is no general statutory duty-of-care liability for harmful (non-copyright) user content.

Child protection online rests mainly on the LGDNNA (2014) and CSAM-removal duties; there is no in-force mandatory social-media age-verification regime comparable to recent US state laws. Reforms to LGDNNA Art. 76 on cyberbullying and harmful content, plus initiatives (e.g., Sen. Colosio Riojas) proposing content blocking, warning labels and parental controls, remain proposed/partial rather than a consolidated online-safety framework.

A 2021 amendment to impose content-moderation duties on social platforms with over one million users was rejected by Congress, and subsequent online-regulation bills have not become a comprehensive statute. Mexico therefore sits between 'partial' and 'proposed,' with active legislative debate but no DSA/OSA-style omnibus regime in force.

Mexico's 2026 Economic Package introduces criminal liability for digital platforms (and owners) that knowingly or negligently allow ads offering fraudulent tax invoices (CFDIs), requiring moderation to detect/block such ads, with possible temporary suspension ('kill switch') of platform access. This is a narrow, fraud-specific obligation rather than a general content-safety law.