Banning Addictive Algorithmic Feeds for Minors

Children are image-bearers, entrusted by God to parents and communities for protection, formation, and flourishing. Social media platforms have increasingly deployed sophisticated algorithmic tools designed not to inform or connect, but to exploit psychological vulnerabilities and manufacture compulsive behavior. When those tools are aimed at minors, the harm is not incidental. It is engineered. Michigan's SB0757 directly addresses this practice by prohibiting addictive feed design targeted at children.

Parental authority is a cornerstone of a rightly ordered society. Parents cannot fulfill their God-given responsibility to shepherd their children's formation if corporations are permitted to bypass that authority through behavioral manipulation. Algorithmic feeds are specifically calibrated to override natural stopping points, suppress rational choice, and maximize time-on-platform regardless of the cost to a child's mental health, sleep, attention, or character. This bill removes that tool from the equation and restores a measure of practical parental authority.

The legislation is narrowly and honestly targeted. It does not ban social media. It does not restrict content in ways that raise legitimate speech concerns. It addresses a specific mechanism, the algorithmically curated addictive feed, that exists primarily to serve platform revenue at the expense of minor users. That focus is a strength. It makes the bill enforceable, defensible, and proportionate to the identified harm.

Faith communities across Michigan have watched young people struggle with anxiety, depression, social isolation, and identity confusion accelerated by compulsive social media use. Pastors, parents, and youth workers have named this crisis from the pulpit and in counseling rooms for years. Legislation that directly constrains one of the primary mechanisms driving that crisis deserves recognition and support from those who care about the next generation.

The American Council supports SB0757 as a principled, proportionate, and meaningful step toward protecting children from technological exploitation. It affirms parental authority, addresses a documented harm, and reflects the kind of ordered governance that communities of faith have always understood to be a legitimate function of civil society.