The banning of social media for youth under 16 in Australia creates a conflict between two moral questions. First, whether youth should be protected from the harms of social media and second, whether the means of accomplishing that ban justify the harms and potential risks that result from the mechanisms of banning social media. There are two ethical frameworks in this debate: Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. The utilitarian framework underpins the arguments against banning social media and the legal justification for said ban. The Kantian framework provides a clear argument as to why the government has a duty to regulate social media.
The ban must also be evaluated from a utilitarian perspective for two reasons. First, the issue is fundamentally teleological. That is to say what purpose does a social media ban serve and does it achieve that goal? This is an application of Act Utilitarianism where an action is morally correct if the good outweighs the bad. The second reason is that utilitarianism is a fundamental philosophical principle of liberal democracy. A social media ban is a legal act that fundamentally infringes upon the liberty of citizens and therefore it must be defended within that framework. “Australia’s system of government is founded in the liberal democratic tradition. …The Australia political regime is a Westminster parliamentary system that borrows from British and North American Models of government.” (Healey, 2015). John Stewart Mill’s utilitarian ethics provides the philosophical foundation of this system (Malcomson et al, 2021), where rights are created due to the utility they provide and if liberty is to be infringed upon it must be justified as to why. The idea that “Governments ought not to interfere with the actions of individuals so long as those individuals are not harming others”(Malcomson et al, 2021, p.9) raises the question as to whether a social media ban is the correct form of intervention as children are not the source of the harms of social media. “The harm principle means two things when examining a social media ban. “The first point is that the onus of proof is always on the government to show why any law that limits our individual liberty is necessary. The second point is that such a law will be valid only if it is necessary to prevent some direct harm to other human beings.”(Malcomson et al, 2021, p.9).“ The precautionary principle of public health provides this justification. The precautionary principle is that even absent clear proof of overwhelming harm from social media, the potential for harm requires precautionary measures to be taken.(Redlich et al,2025).
Access to social media does provide a benefit to youth, particularly from the benefits of freedom of expression that allow them to feel social connectedness, validation, a sense of belonging, and gain access to resources they might not otherwise have in their communities.(Chobra, 2025) This is particularly important for LGBTQ+ youth(Orygen Institute & Headspace, 2025)(Coyne et al, 2023). Weighing against this are increased rates of depression and anxiety, body image and eating disorders, exposure to misinformation via epistemic bubbles and echo chambers, as well as risks of cyber-bullying and predation(Chobra, 2025). The privacy risk from age verification processes adversely affects the whole population.
The justification for banning social media to prevent harm is clear and morally defensible from a Kantian perspective. A ban teaches children discipline and the cultivation of agency and virtue without reliance on an artificial tool allows them to develop proper moral character. The use of children as a means by social media companies is in violation of kantian ethics.
Even though a Social media ban can be justified through Kantian ethics, there are several objections that need to be addressed. First, The Supreme Principle of the Doctrine of Virtue “Requires us to “act in accordance with a maxim of ends that it can be a universal law for everyone to have”(MM 6:395). If this is the case then it should be justified to ban social media for all citizens, not just the youth. “The Universal Principle of Right, governing issues of justice, rights and external acts that can be coercively enforced, is that “Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law” (MM 6:230) also inherently conflicts with banning social media as it is inherently a restriction of freedom. It is also important to note the way in which this conversation refers to youth, and the media framing of this issue that social media is purely harmful and its usage by youth is something that needs to be legally controlled is itself problematic. The perspectives of the youth are largely absent from this debate (Predergast & Dyer, 2026). The objection here is that children aren’t being accorded with the full dignity and agency that they should.
While it is clear that there are harms caused by social media and that a ban on social media for youth is justified both within Kantian and Utilitarian frameworks, both frameworks raise the question of whether banning social media for youth is the best solution to this problem. The reduction of the solution to problematic social media use by youth to a binary choice between an unrestricted access to a total ban of social media obfuscates overarching ethical problems with social media technology that need to be addressed. The fundamental issue with this law is that it regulates the social media user rather than the technology. A ban does not address the ethical duties of social media companies and impose requirements on them. Part of the issue is that social media is not conceptualized the same way as other commercial products. The core of this debate has been whether social media is harmful enough to be restricted. The regulatory process for other products is that they need to be proven safe in order to be legal and there is significant oversight throughout the production process. In order for a government to properly fulfill its duty to protect its citizens from the harms of social media, a multifaceted approach that regulates social media companies and supports youth and their families is necessary.
Approaching the problem in this way sidesteps the issues of universality on the Kantian side and the infringement of rights from a Utilitarian perspective allowing a balance to be struck between protecting youth from harm and preserving access to the beneficial elements of social media.