The proposed social media ban for under-16s divides parents, kids, politicians and experts

Yesterday, National announced it would introduce legislation to ban under-16s from social media, bringing up divisions across many lines, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

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Yesterday, prime minister Christopher Luxon and education minister Erica Stanford announced that the Online Safety (Minimum Age and Child Safety Risk Assessment) Bill would be introduced to Parliament, which would ban “high risk” social media for under-16s. Social media platforms would have to introduce “reasonable steps to check users are over the age of 16” with a threat of fines of up to 10% of their global revenue for non-compliance (potentially billions of dollars).

“One in three children aged between 13 and 17 are now spending at least five hours on social media a day,” Luxon said, reported by 1News’s Justin Hu. “Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with.”

For a more comprehensive explainer, read this from The Spinoff’s Alice Neville and/or watch this short video from Now You Know.

National forced to go at it alone, for now

The political path to the bill has been rocky and passing it may prove even more treacherous. As Stuff’s Jenna Lynch reported this morning, National effectively “steamrolled” its coalition partners in pushing the legislation forward, knowing Act and NZ First both opposed it. Winston Peters, quoted in the Herald, said it would “lead to a Soviet-era outcome” and David Seymour, who was also concerned with the privacy implications, called it “more of a face-saver for politicians who promised too much than a serious solution”.

The Post’s Anneke Smith also reported on the politics behind the announcement this morning, writing that the ban is still a long way off, “if it happens at all.” The legislation faces an uncertain path through parliament, with National most likely needing the support of its opposition. “The ball is now in Labour’s court,” she wrote, “but it will be 2027 before anyone has a chance to do anything with it.”

Parents v kids

For some parents, the ban cannot come soon enough. Chris Schulz, on The Spinoff today, described how his 16-year-old son had downloaded Instagram at age 13 without Schulz’s knowledge or required approval, and by the time they were aware, he was already hooked. “Until the social media ban bill passes (if it passes), decisions like this are entirely governed not by the platforms knowingly causing problems, but by parents desperately trying to make sure their kids aren’t fed problematic content,” he wrote. “It would be nice to know that we could point to the government and tell our daughter it’s their fault she’s not allowed to use Instagram, rather than giving her another thing to battle us about.”

But, somewhat predictably, most of the teens (and pre-teens) The Spinoff talked to yesterday were skeptical of the proposed ban. “I know it’s to stop young people from seeing things they shouldn’t, but maybe they could just put settings on the apps that stop dangerous content instead,” a 13-year-old said. “So pointless,” said a 14-year-old. “I speak to my cousin in Melbourne every day on Snap. There will be a way around it anyway.”

A ‘distraction from the real crisis’

Doctors from the University of Auckland have warned that banning social media is “a distraction from the real crisis” that ignores wider economic drivers of youth distress. “To imply that social media is the cause of increasing mental distress, without regard for the wider social, economic and political environments of our children is disingenuous,” Terryann Clark, the chair in child and adolescent mental health, and Sarah Hetrick, a professor of psychological medicine, wrote on Newsroom in July. They noted that indicators of poor mental health among young people were already rising before the mass introduction of social media, and that the research showing negative effects typically shows they are small.

A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia shared this view, finding that the relationship between social media use and depressive symptoms accounted for less than 1% of the variation in those symptoms. In other words, more than 99% of the differences in young people’s mental health were explained by other factors.

Most concerning, Clark and Hetrick warned, a ban might “inadvertently push young people who are suicidal or being targeted online away from their parents because they are afraid that they will get into trouble.” Early evidence from Australia found around a quarter of children felt less socially connected or had lost access to peer support networks and a similar proportion reported their children “migrating to less-regulated (more dangerous) corners of the internet instead.”

“Banning social media for under 16-year-olds is a blunt instrument,” they wrote, “a scapegoat for avoiding more complex social, political and economic problems causing distress among our children.”

The Spinoff