When States Replace Parents and God: The Canadian Social Media Bill and the Abdication of Catholic Principle
EWTN News portal reports that the Canadian government has introduced the Safe Social Media Act, prohibiting children under 16 from creating accounts on major social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook. The bill mandates age-verification systems, requires platforms to delete existing under-16 accounts, limits addictive design features such as infinite scrolling and algorithmic feeds, and creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada with enforcement powers carrying penalties of up to $10 million or 3% of global annual revenue. The article notes similar legislation in Australia and France, and highlights praise from the bishops of Minnesota for state-level restrictions on social media’s addictive features for minors. What the article presents as a straightforward public health measure, however, reveals upon Catholic analysis a profound confusion about the nature of authority, the rights of parents, the limits of civil power, and the spiritual roots of the very harms it claims to address.


