New Zealand moves to ban under-16s from social media platforms

New Zealand has introduced a bill that would restrict children’s access to social media, adding to growing efforts by governments to impose minimum age requirements on platforms.

The Online Safety (Minimum Age and Child Safety Risk Assessment) Bill will require “high-risk” social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from holding accounts.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the bill is designed to keep children safe from the harmful effects of social media as “one in three children aged between 13 and 17 are now spending at least five hours on social media a day.”

“Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with and it’s affecting their family life, mental health, sleep, and education,” he added.

The bill will also introduce penalties of up to 10 percent of platform's global revenue for non-compliance. It would also establish an online safety regulator within the Department of Internal Affairs to independently monitor compliance.

New Zealand Education Minister Erica Stanford said the bill places New Zealand in line with other countries around the world that are placing greater responsibility on technology companies to protect children online.

“The bill places legal obligations on platforms. No penalties are proposed for children, their parents or caregivers,” she said.

Luxon meanwhile acknowledged the scepticism the ban is likely to face, particularly given the debate that has followed the policy since Australia first introduced it last year.

“We know that we will not get every single child off social media, but early evidence from Australia shows minimum age requirements are already changing behaviour. This is about making a meaningful difference now and changing the norm for future generations,” he said. 

The bill has drawn criticism from political parties ACT New Zealand and New Zealand First (NZF), which have both questioned its effectiveness.

David Seymour, New Zealand's deputy prime minister and leader of ACT, said the proposed ban would either be too broad to enforce without affecting adults or too weak to make a meaningful difference. 

“Any Government trying to implement a ban faces two basic choices. They can make it so strong that adults are caught up in it, like France where the Government is going back to the drawing board after their top Court struck the law out. Or, they can make the law so weak that is makes little difference, as Australia has found with nearly all children still on social media as if there is no ban,” he said in a statement. 

The New Zealand First party said that "no matter how laudable the intent is” behind the proposed legislation, there is no way to fulfil that intent without banning VPNs or using digital ID to enforce the law. 

The party also described the ban introduced in Australia as a "colossal failure." It warned that adopting similar measures could “lead to some sort of soviet era outcome that would be guaranteed to take New Zealanders’ freedoms and privacy away.”