Lawmakers in Australia recently passed changes to the Online Safety Act 2021, with Online Security Supplement (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, which prohibits minors under the age of 16 from having social media accounts from platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok and X. Also required: Social media platforms must take steps to protect these online from such harm as bullying, predatory behavior and algorithms that drive destructive content.

Some proponents of the legislation argue that the use of social media has led to a variety of harms to young people, from eating disorders to suicide; the new legislation will hold media companies accountable for failing to make efforts to limit the use of social media by under-16s.

Prominent Catholics with an interest in technology and social media offered the Register a variety of perspectives on the new legislation.

Luke McCormack is president of Australia’s National Civic Council, an organization founded by Catholics that seeks to “countercommunist influence in society” and has “a keen interest in all laws and institutions affecting the family and society at large.”

The father-of-six has “major concerns about the effectiveness and impact” of the new legislation, as well as the speed with which it was “cleared through Parliament with just over a week of debate.”

McCormack’s first concern is the law’s effect on Australians’ privacy rights.

“In practice, that means verifying the age of every Australian who uses social media,” he said, noting that the broad definition of social media could mean it included such sites as fitness app Strava and prayer app Hallow. Ironically, he noted, pornography and gambling sites are not included.

He added that before the Online Safety Amendment was passed, there was a failed attempt “to try to police ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ that chilled free speech and did nothing to counter actual misinformation. … Recent inquiries also suggest establishing” national hate crime databases’ and backdoors to encrypted messaging and state anti-defamation 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 could 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 tribunals.” He noted that Australia’s Catholic bishops have had to defend the Church simply because they have taught about traditional marriage.

And finally, as social media has become a key tool for promoting Church events and promoting Catholic teaching, those under 16 would be prevented from accessing this information.

He concluded, “I would welcome government support to tackle online toxicity and perversion – but not at the expense of free speech, democracy or the family as the basic 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-leads its Theology of Home project, thinks such legislation is “in theory” a good idea, because 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 argued, “and Australia’s past efforts to ‘control disinformation’ do not inspire 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 could be presented by nefarious actors as harmful, offensive or bigoted as a pretext for 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 of taking free 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 leads the Technology and Human Flourishing project. She expressed her strong support for age restrictions on social media, comparing it to age restrictions on the purchase and use of tobacco and alcohol.

Extensive use of social media, 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 makes them crave more.”

She worries about children being exposed to harmful things on the internet and specifically pointed to pornography. The average age of porn exposure among children is 12, she noted, and 58% of children first exposed to pornography by accident.

“This shows that the internet can be a dangerous environment for children, just like strip clubs and casinos,” she said. “Age restrictions are therefore appropriate.”

It makes sense to let the government “step in” and help protect children online, she added, because it’s important that such protection is broad-based and not left solely to the discretion of parents. She noted that she is a mother of three children ages 4 and under and has planned to keep her children completely off social media until adulthood, using the Internet only when necessary, with parental supervision.

Katie McGrady, Hosted by The Katie McGrady Show on Sirius XM’s The Catholic Channel, is also a mother of young children and shares a similar perspective.

“Think of the Internet as an amusement park; we would never let our kids walk into Las Vegas without guardrails,” she said.

Americans can be resistant to putting 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 the drinking age in states from 18 to 21: “A lot of 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 material online: “If it puts additional guardrails on the wild west of the Internet, it can be good.”

But he worried about how harmful content and “dangerous algorithms” might be defined.

He asked, “What if we get someone to enforce the law who has an aggressively secular outlook and who sees religion as a dangerous and harmful ideology, or who objects to specific Catholic teachings?”

The principle of subsidiarity

Additionally, the subsidiarity principle 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 Internet Security Act lead to parents “falling asleep at the wheel, that is not a good result either.” The government will not be able to remove all harmful content.”

He said support for such legislation is prompted by a growing realization that constant online activity is harmful to human communication and community and otherwise “unhelpful to human flourishing.” Such laws may soon come to the United States, he continued, because “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 the direct supervision of parents, whose job it is to keep them safe.”