Lawmakers in Australia recently passed changes to the Online Safety Act 2021, with the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, which prohibits minors under age 16 from having social-media accounts from such platforms as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok and X. Also required: Social-media platforms must take steps to protect those online from such harm as bullying, predatory behavior and algorithms pushing destructive content.
Some proponents of the legislation argue that social media use has led to a wide variety of harm to young people, from eating disorders to suicide; the new legislation will hold media companies responsible for not making an effort to restrict social media use among those under 16.
Prominent Catholics with an interest in technology and social media offered a variety of takes on the new legislation to the Register.
Luke McCormack is president of Australia’s National Civic Council, an organization founded by Catholics that seeks “to counter communist influence in society” and takes “a keen interest in all laws and institutions that affect the family and society at large.”
The father of six has “grave concerns about the effectiveness and consequences” of the new legislation, as well as the speed with which it was “rammed through Parliament with just over a week of debate.”
McCormack’s initial concern is the law’s effect on the privacy rights of Australians.
“In practice, it means verifying the age of every Australian who uses social media,” he said, noting that the broad definition of social media could make it include such sites as the fitness app Strava and the prayer app Hallow. Ironically, he noted, pornography and gaming sites are not included.
He added that before the passage of the Online Safety Amendment, there was an unsuccessful effort “seeking to police ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ that chilled free speech and did nothing to counter actual disinformation. … Recent inquires also propose establishing ‘national hate-crime databases’ and backdoors into encrypted messaging and state-based anti-vilification laws that would seriously harm free speech and free association.”
The new amendment could be a milder form of such an extreme effort, he suggested.
He also worried that the new law might prompt media companies to preemptively block controversial content rather than risk legal action and lead “conservative and religious people and organizations to self-censor rather than risk defending themselves in court or at tribunals.” He noted that Australia’s Catholic bishops have had to defend the Church merely for teaching about traditional marriage.
And finally, as social media has become a key tool in advertising Church events and promoting Catholic teaching, those under 16 would be barred from accessing this information.
He concluded, “I would welcome governmental support in tackling online toxicity and perversion — but not at the expense of free speech, democracy or the family as the fundamental unit of society.”
In the United States, Catholic commentators shared their perspectives.
Noelle Mering, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who co-directs its Theology of Home Project, believes that “in theory” such legislation is a good idea, as social media is “incredibly harmful” to children, but added that free speech and privacy rights must be balanced with efforts to protect children.
“The devil is in the details,” she opined, “and Australia’s past efforts to ‘control misinformation’ do not engender confidence in their ability to navigate this balance appropriately.”
Such legislation could also prove dangerous for Catholics, as “it is entirely conceivable that what the Church teaches can be framed by nefarious actors as harmful, abusive or bigoted as a pretext to censoring it.”
The ban is being implemented as part of “a rushed process and is far too light on the details,” she added. “That combined with their poor record on taking freedom of speech seriously should make us wary.”
Support for Age Restrictions
Clare Morell is also a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs the Technology and Human Flourishing Project. She expressed her strong support for social-media age restrictions and compared it to age restrictions on the purchase and use of tobacco and alcohol.
Extensive social media use, she believes, is “harmful to a developing brain. Research has shown that its use is similar to the use of highly addictive drugs; the dopamine effect leaves them craving more.”
She worries that children on the internet are exposed to harmful things and specifically pointed to pornography. The average age of exposure to porn among children is age 12, she noted, and 58% of children are first exposed to pornography by accident.
“This shows that the internet can be a dangerous environment for children, just as are strip clubs and casinos,” she said. “Age restrictions, therefore, are appropriate.”
It makes sense to have the government “step in” and help safeguard children on the internet, she added, as it is important for such protection to be broad-based and not solely left to parents’ discretion. She noted that she is the mother of three children ages 4 and under and has planned to keep her children entirely away from social media until adulthood, only using the internet when necessary, with parental supervision.
Katie McGrady, host of The Katie McGrady Show on Sirius XM’s The Catholic Channel, is also a mother of small children and shares a similar perspective.
“Think of the internet as entertainment city; we would never let our children walk into Las Vegas without guard rails,” she said,
Americans may be resistant to put limits on their freedoms — “If my 13-year-old wants to be on Facebook, why can’t he?” — but McGrady believes the benefits far outweigh the harm.
She compared it to laws raising drinking ages in states from 18 to 21: “Many people may have objected to it at the time, but I think those three years of maturity can really lead to more responsible drinking.”
Professor John Grabowski, who teaches moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America, agrees that there is a need to protect children from cyberbullying, predatory behavior and harmful materials online: “If it puts additional guardrails on the Wild West of the internet, that could be a good thing.”
But he worried how harmful content and “dangerous algorithms” might be defined.
He asked, “What if we get someone applying the law who has an aggressively secular outlook and who sees religion as a dangerous and harmful ideology, or objects to specific Catholic teachings?”
Principle of Subsidiarity
Additionally, the principle of subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching means that protecting children from harmful content is a job best done by parents, Grabowski believes, rather than a government entity. Should the Online Safety Act result in parents “falling asleep at the wheel, that’s not a good outcome either. The government is not going to be able to remove all harmful content.”
He said support for such legislation is prompted by a growing realization that constant online activity is damaging to human communications and community and otherwise “not helpful to human flourishing.” Such laws may soon come to the United States, he continued, as “one side of the political divide favors expansive government regulation, while the other may support protections for children and families.”
Regardless, he concluded, while the internet has positive uses, “children should use the internet under direct supervision of parents, who are tasked with keeping them safe.”
