Banning Social Media Like Australia Isn’t Freedom

Originally published on Substack. 

​The push to ban social media for minors is back in Texas, and it’s being sold as a moral imperative.

In a recent Dallas Morning News op-ed, State Rep. Jared Patterson (R) argues that Texas should follow Australia’s lead by restricting minors’ access to social media, framing the issue as a matter of urgency in response to rising youth mental-health challenges. His column, “What Australia’s social media ban means for Texans”, is thoughtful in tone and sincere in concern—but deeply flawed in its assumptions and conclusions.

Parents’ concerns are real. Patterson is right about that. Online predators exist. Some platforms may be addictive by design. Screens can crowd out sleep, exercise, and real-world relationships. These are legitimate issues.

But acknowledging real risks does not justify handing broad new powers to the state. The leap from “this is hard for parents” to “government must ban or condition speech” is neither conservative nor constitutional.

Patterson’s argument relies heavily on two pillars: the work of Jonathan Haidt and the example set by Australia. Both deserve closer scrutiny.
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Start with Haidt. His work treats social media as a primary driver of youth anxiety and depression. But his evidence shows correlation, not causation. Mental health outcomes are influenced by many things like family stability, academic pressure, economic stress, sleep deprivation, social isolation, and lingering effects of pandemic policies. Social media may exacerbate some problems, but elevating it to the dominant cause oversimplifies reality and invites blunt policy responses.

​More troubling, Haidt’s framework subtly shifts responsibility away from parents and toward government. Kids are cast as helpless. Parents are portrayed as overwhelmed. The state becomes the fixer. That worldview is incompatible with a society built on personal responsibility and limited government.

Then there’s Australia, which Patterson presents as a model worth emulating. That comparison should immediately raise red flags. Australia does not recognize free speech as a fundamental constitutional right in the way the United States does, or the even stronger protections found in Article I, Section 8 of the Texas Constitution. Policies that may be legally permissible there face serious constitutional barriers here.

More importantly, Australia’s recent history shows how readily its government defaults to control. The same country now praised for “protecting kids online” imposed some of the longest and most severe COVID lockdowns in the democratic world, enforced through surveillance, travel bans, and coercive policing. Texans who value liberty should be deeply skeptical of importing policy ideas from a system that so casually set freedom aside.

In Texas, this debate played out during the 2025 regular session through House Bill 186, which proposed a categorical ban on social media for minors regardless of parental consent, maturity, or purpose. Thankfully HB 186 died, and that outcome matters. It reflected legitimate concerns about constitutionality, parental authority, and the dangerous precedent of state control over lawful speech.

Yet the push didn’t stop. Senate Bill 2420 passed using a different but equally troubling route by regulating app stores and forcing age verification on everyone, not just minors. That means adults, too, would have to hand over personal or transactional data simply to access lawful speech. This is how liberty erodes—not always through outright bans, but through “safety” systems that normalize surveillance.

Courts are beginning to recognize this danger. A federal judge recently blocked Louisiana’s social media age-verification law, finding that conditioning access to lawful speech on identity verification likely violates the First Amendment. Similar laws across the country are being rightly halted for constitutional violations. Good intentions do not override constitutional limits.

What Patterson’s column also overlooks is the opportunity cost imposed on kids. Like it or not, today’s world is digital. Social media is not merely entertainment. It’s how young people build communication skills, form networks, explore interests, organize civically, and prepare for modern careers.

Blanket restrictions don’t eliminate risk; they restrict access to opportunities that matter for future success.

This is especially inconsistent in Texas, where lawmakers rightly argue that parents—not bureaucrats—should control education. If parents can be trusted to choose schools, curricula, and values, they can be trusted to manage screens.

There are economic and privacy costs as well. Mandatory verification systems impose compliance burdens that smaller platforms struggle to absorb, reducing competition and innovation. At the same time, they expand data collection and increase the risk of breaches and identity theft.

Here’s the bottom line: we need more responsible parents, not more irresponsible government, in kids’ lives. Legislation like HB 186 and SB 2420 moves us in the wrong direction. It weakens parental responsibility by substituting state control, all while expanding government power in ways that should concern Texans across the political spectrum.

Closing

Rep. Patterson is right to care about kids. Where his argument goes wrong is in assuming that state mandates, speech restrictions, and surveillance-based enforcement are the answer. Texas does not need to follow Australia. It needs to uphold its own constitutional traditions—trust families, respect liberty, and resist the urge to regulate away complex social problems with blunt government force.

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