David, thank you for your extensive article. I agree with much of your critique, particularly the extraordinary privacy and regulatory implications of creating an age-verification infrastructure for the whole population. Indeed, a conspiracy theorist might conclude that the whole exercise is aimed at creating a powerful reason to implement precisely such a digital infrastructure. But I think there is a more fundamental point that is largely missing from your discussion.
Even if the ban could be made effective, what exactly are we achieving by keeping under-16s out of social media? The digital world is not going away. These children will eventually have to navigate it, and the real objective should surely be to equip them to do so intelligently and safely.
This is the old "give a man a fish" problem. We increasingly respond to difficult problems by attempting to remove the difficulty rather than developing people's capacity to deal with it. A ban may reduce children's immediate exposure to the risks of social media, but it does not teach them to recognise manipulation, resist addictive behaviour, deal with online pressure, distinguish reality from the manufactured world of social media, or exercise judgement.
The same problem is evident in the increasing reluctance to allow children to experience manageable risk and adversity. Resilience isn't developed by removing every difficulty; it is developed by encountering difficulty and learning that you can cope with it.
There is also a striking connection with what is happening to free speech more generally. We are already seeing adults being shielded from ideas and opinions that do not fit an approved narrative, through deplatforming, cancel culture and increasingly aggressive attempts to label dissenting views as harmful or dangerous. The underlying mentality is remarkably similar: rather than teaching people to confront ideas they dislike, assess them and reject them, prevent them from encountering those ideas in the first place. If we now raise children in the same culture of managed exposure, why would we expect them to become adults who value intellectual resilience and freedom of thought? We may be teaching the very generation that will inherit this system to regard protection from unwelcome ideas as a legitimate function of society.
So I think the question is rather larger than whether this particular ban can be enforced. Are we trying to make the world safe for children, or are we trying to make children capable of dealing with the reality of a rough, tough and desperately unjust world? Sometimes protection is necessary, but if the objective is ultimately to produce capable adults, we need considerably more emphasis on teaching them to fish.
If Erica et al "have their way", I can see them extending the ban from "under 16" to "under 18" within a year or so, based on the argument that those turning 16 won't have learned how to cope with what they've been denied access to...
And then the question will become "why should they be allowed to vote at 18, when they have been so cocooned from reality..."
Agree with you here in the most part Ron, but navigating the web safely would need to be taught in schools cos too many parents suck at parenting. I would however make smart phones illegal for under 16. They’ll still get online, but less so. And if their friends also don’t have smart phones, just maybe they’ll start being real kids again.
Excellent David. So much here to process. I do feel that underlying much of the push for this legislation is an abrogation of parental responsibility, ie, just hand it over to the state when things have got out of control. Children were given smart phones at very young ages and look what happened. Young girls had eating disorders, young men took their own lives before social media existed. I’m not denying platforms are harmful, but the classic comment on One news last night came from the teenager who said parents tell him to get off his phone but they’re scrolling all the time. I see that all the time!
Times have changed. We can’t ‘ban’ teenagers from smart phones. 16 yrs old is too high. They know everything by that age. They deserve respect.
Your conclusion is correct. Bring social media more in line with publishing - we can’t publish harmful material, not even how someone commits suicide in a coroner’s report. Why should a different medium be allowed to get away with it?
Difficult, I know. But this Bill is Nanny State gone whacko.
Remember when Helen Clark tried to nanny state the type of shower heads peopl;e used. I reckon that was a step too far that contributed to her government losing the election.
What worries me is the combo of Luxon and Stanford. Luxon is a fool who imagines he is the smartest man in the room. Stanford wants his job and was a little more savvy than Chris Penk by sitting in the background during the failed coup recently. God help us if she ever gets to head up Natiopnal and becomes PM. It will be a Helen Clark/Jacinda Ardern combo - truly scary. The ruthlessness of Clark and the superficial attractiveness of Ardern (shiver).
Stanford really went up in my estimation when she took a chainsaw to the NCEA. I had spent so many years writing articles for North & South picking apart that dreadful beast, hammered on to our youth by none other than Lockwood Smith, who wanted a "seamless education system". Now we have 19 per cent of kids leaving school with no qualification at all. Child-centred education. This is a dreadful tragedy. It affected poor schools the most. Those families with the money to buy into grammar zones, or send their kids to private schools could escape. Others had to suck it up. Teacher unions loved it. I am still hated by the teacher unions.
But when I saw Stanford obsessed with "protecting our kids" with this Bill I thought, uh-oh, here lies trouble. And yes, Luxon is a fool. Just by the way he speaks you can tell he's a robotic fool.
I'm truly puzzled that all it seems to take these days is for someone to be mildly personably attractive to climb the political ladder - witness the leader of the Opportunity Party - what does she actually stand for? What is she really saying? I have no idea because her words are meaningless and therefore inoffensive. Like Kamala Harris. Same as Stanford. Same as Luxon. Same as Starmer.
I'd rather be loathed for shooting from the lip, than be popular for spouting babble.
I think Quilae Wong has climbed the political ladder for two reasons: the MSM are giving her huge promotion and an easy ride because they'll do anything to get rid of the coalition and see her as the means to this end, and she's a Jacinda clone - personable, pretty and articulate, so the professional managerial class love her. The fact that TOP is far to the left of Labour etc seems to have escaped everyone.
On Hosking this morning he mentioned asking some older TOP persuaded voters why. The answer was apparently "because they are different". In what way they are different apparently didn't matter! Whilst nobody would wish that kind of inane thinking on their worst enemy, it does reflect the stark reality of a complete and utter lack of innovation from successive Governments.
Ashley Church was interview by Leah Panapa on the Platform today. His excoriation of TOP was sublime. Their policies are just so daft it’s almost funny.
I recently spent two weeks basking in the warm embrace of northern Australia and actively engaging with my social media apps, such is the sad soul one has become. At no time was my age challenged for the purposes of compliance with Australian law, which surprised me.
"New Zealand’s constitutional order is different — no entrenched First Amendment, a Bill of Rights that Parliament can override"......what can we do about this? It is an increasingly urgent problem.
Jeffrey Palmer pops up from time to time. Judith Collins might be coaxed out of her mink-lined gilded prison. She must be disappointed to have had her report over-ridden.
We need a group to work on a Bill of Rights that has gravity. Without it, we are easy meat.
Hard to take the writer seriously when it’s evident the majority of this was written by a LLM. “The [Bill] is stand-alone statue built on two ~load-bearing~ duties.” Even more so when they’re willing to illustrate their article with equally abhorrent AI art.
Seems even former judges aren’t immune from AI psychosis.
As to the language - as Pilate said - what I have written I have written.
I can'
t help it if I sound like an LLM. Much legal writing has a large formulaic element to it. That said I came across the phrase in another context and it seemed to fit here.
nothing wrong with Halfling's art. You want us to go back to the caves, spitting a mixture of soot, fat and ochre on the wall, using our hands as stensils? Halfling's artwork is a true and valid celebration of the 70s, and if anything should ever be celebrated, it's the 70s. Before your time, Christian? BC?
All this should be the responsibility of parents, not the govt... the tools for parents to use already exist. Apple and Google have them in their devices.. but the govt ignores that.
If implemented this will go the same way as road planning.
Roads built for vehicular transport to get around with the optimal combo of speed, capacity and safety (in turn balancing vehicle occupants and other road users) end up with roundabouts, speed bumps and 30km zones on SH1 in the never ending pursuit of “safety”.
I urge policy makers to extend the concept of “safety” to the population’s mental health and capacity to put up with being nannied.
At what point does “Safety” become the millstone around our collective necks that drags us down to the bottom? Personally I think it is abundantly clear that the chain is well wrapped around our necks and our nostrils are already under water - let’s hope we slacken those chains sufficiently and in time to prevent us from going fully under.
Never ever trust the Government, any Government especially when they say trust us! This is just another part of the wedge being driven between us and our personal freedoms.
More fine analysis, thanks for the great work Sir Hobbit. I’m with Ani on this, restricting hardware I think is more likely to work. Even if it only partly works, like smoking restrictions, it’ll be better than this lame-o approach. Yup, patents need to do this shit, but too many muppety excuses-for-parents out there now tbh. Society actually needs a huge re-think about its goals & heroes which is a core part of the problem. Kids use social media to get attention, that is their currency. But how to curb the greed that drives businesses to exploit kids by tapping into that false promise is the hard question. Maybe we could just ban advertising on social platforms and nudge to subscriptions instead?
Super article. I see a fine of 10% of turnover would really Sting.
But could we? How and where does NZ do this? Which country and legal system allows this ? What are the costs and complications? What’s the probability of success and collecting the fine?
And if successful, what will DTs reaction be when his obscenely rich tech bro buddies go crying to him?
It’s hard to know if you taking the Mickey or not. But I believe there are obscenely rich. Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos have total net worth of 1.3 Trillion USD. Obscene on a different plane are several German companies who received a great start from their role in the 39..45 Holocaust . “Nazi Billionaires : The Dark History of Germanys Wealthiest Dynasties “ is worth a read.
And no, I certainly don’t envy them. But the serious question remains ie. What is the probability that NZ can fine a social media company an amount that will sting. A final note, I just teleported via TunnelBear to Brisbane and an opened a couple of SM accounts with fake info. No age verification required.
No - not taking the mickey. I don’t see wealth as obscene but then that is a value judgement. I don’t think you can equate Bezos and Zuckerberg alongside Nazi Holocaust profiteers. Amazon and Facebook were created by visionaries who took huge risks that paid off. Obscene - no.
As far as penalties are concerned what I consider as obscene is the State giving itself the power to block access in serious cases.
Ignoring your comment about DT and any tech bro buddies he may have, I think you have a good point about tiny little NZ trying to apply a huge fine against a massive multinational.
I imagine the outcome could be the multi deciding to block NZ access to their platform, because we're so inconsequential to them.
Think I saw a report, back when Aus was formulating its blockage plans, that YouTube had threatened the Aussies with blocking access and that Aus initially said they would consider excluding YouTube from the legislation, before changing their minds....
I find it hard to believe the SM lot are trying Just post some copyright material and see a very quick DMCA takedown, so obviously their AI engines are effective. ( and more capable every day) So how hard would it for them to accept a list of objectionable content from NZ and delete it. Yes, there will be false positives. About 15 yrs ago I was working as an Avionics engineer and ran foul of the company email system by using naughty words like “cockpit grips”. “Male and female connector contacts” and. Paris Trip. The latter was parsed to … strip !
None at all. One of the joys of the Digital Paradigm is the quality of permissionless innovation. But to modify an axiom - if you build it they MAY come...
Good, that's reassuring. And while they're at it, could we please have an NZED, like the one where I had my first job, and a Post Office, and a decent state-run TV, radio and print outlet, and a phone company that is a strategic asset as well as a good, reliable service?
David, thank you for your extensive article. I agree with much of your critique, particularly the extraordinary privacy and regulatory implications of creating an age-verification infrastructure for the whole population. Indeed, a conspiracy theorist might conclude that the whole exercise is aimed at creating a powerful reason to implement precisely such a digital infrastructure. But I think there is a more fundamental point that is largely missing from your discussion.
Even if the ban could be made effective, what exactly are we achieving by keeping under-16s out of social media? The digital world is not going away. These children will eventually have to navigate it, and the real objective should surely be to equip them to do so intelligently and safely.
This is the old "give a man a fish" problem. We increasingly respond to difficult problems by attempting to remove the difficulty rather than developing people's capacity to deal with it. A ban may reduce children's immediate exposure to the risks of social media, but it does not teach them to recognise manipulation, resist addictive behaviour, deal with online pressure, distinguish reality from the manufactured world of social media, or exercise judgement.
The same problem is evident in the increasing reluctance to allow children to experience manageable risk and adversity. Resilience isn't developed by removing every difficulty; it is developed by encountering difficulty and learning that you can cope with it.
There is also a striking connection with what is happening to free speech more generally. We are already seeing adults being shielded from ideas and opinions that do not fit an approved narrative, through deplatforming, cancel culture and increasingly aggressive attempts to label dissenting views as harmful or dangerous. The underlying mentality is remarkably similar: rather than teaching people to confront ideas they dislike, assess them and reject them, prevent them from encountering those ideas in the first place. If we now raise children in the same culture of managed exposure, why would we expect them to become adults who value intellectual resilience and freedom of thought? We may be teaching the very generation that will inherit this system to regard protection from unwelcome ideas as a legitimate function of society.
So I think the question is rather larger than whether this particular ban can be enforced. Are we trying to make the world safe for children, or are we trying to make children capable of dealing with the reality of a rough, tough and desperately unjust world? Sometimes protection is necessary, but if the objective is ultimately to produce capable adults, we need considerably more emphasis on teaching them to fish.
Totally agree Ron.
If Erica et al "have their way", I can see them extending the ban from "under 16" to "under 18" within a year or so, based on the argument that those turning 16 won't have learned how to cope with what they've been denied access to...
And then the question will become "why should they be allowed to vote at 18, when they have been so cocooned from reality..."
Agree with you here in the most part Ron, but navigating the web safely would need to be taught in schools cos too many parents suck at parenting. I would however make smart phones illegal for under 16. They’ll still get online, but less so. And if their friends also don’t have smart phones, just maybe they’ll start being real kids again.
Or maybe even smarter phones that become noisily offended and shut down if they're stared at for more than 10 minutes per day, irrespective of age.
Excellent David. So much here to process. I do feel that underlying much of the push for this legislation is an abrogation of parental responsibility, ie, just hand it over to the state when things have got out of control. Children were given smart phones at very young ages and look what happened. Young girls had eating disorders, young men took their own lives before social media existed. I’m not denying platforms are harmful, but the classic comment on One news last night came from the teenager who said parents tell him to get off his phone but they’re scrolling all the time. I see that all the time!
Times have changed. We can’t ‘ban’ teenagers from smart phones. 16 yrs old is too high. They know everything by that age. They deserve respect.
Your conclusion is correct. Bring social media more in line with publishing - we can’t publish harmful material, not even how someone commits suicide in a coroner’s report. Why should a different medium be allowed to get away with it?
Difficult, I know. But this Bill is Nanny State gone whacko.
Thanks Deborah.
I agree that this is nanny state gone whacko.
Remember when Helen Clark tried to nanny state the type of shower heads peopl;e used. I reckon that was a step too far that contributed to her government losing the election.
What worries me is the combo of Luxon and Stanford. Luxon is a fool who imagines he is the smartest man in the room. Stanford wants his job and was a little more savvy than Chris Penk by sitting in the background during the failed coup recently. God help us if she ever gets to head up Natiopnal and becomes PM. It will be a Helen Clark/Jacinda Ardern combo - truly scary. The ruthlessness of Clark and the superficial attractiveness of Ardern (shiver).
Stanford really went up in my estimation when she took a chainsaw to the NCEA. I had spent so many years writing articles for North & South picking apart that dreadful beast, hammered on to our youth by none other than Lockwood Smith, who wanted a "seamless education system". Now we have 19 per cent of kids leaving school with no qualification at all. Child-centred education. This is a dreadful tragedy. It affected poor schools the most. Those families with the money to buy into grammar zones, or send their kids to private schools could escape. Others had to suck it up. Teacher unions loved it. I am still hated by the teacher unions.
But when I saw Stanford obsessed with "protecting our kids" with this Bill I thought, uh-oh, here lies trouble. And yes, Luxon is a fool. Just by the way he speaks you can tell he's a robotic fool.
I'm truly puzzled that all it seems to take these days is for someone to be mildly personably attractive to climb the political ladder - witness the leader of the Opportunity Party - what does she actually stand for? What is she really saying? I have no idea because her words are meaningless and therefore inoffensive. Like Kamala Harris. Same as Stanford. Same as Luxon. Same as Starmer.
I'd rather be loathed for shooting from the lip, than be popular for spouting babble.
I think Quilae Wong has climbed the political ladder for two reasons: the MSM are giving her huge promotion and an easy ride because they'll do anything to get rid of the coalition and see her as the means to this end, and she's a Jacinda clone - personable, pretty and articulate, so the professional managerial class love her. The fact that TOP is far to the left of Labour etc seems to have escaped everyone.
On Hosking this morning he mentioned asking some older TOP persuaded voters why. The answer was apparently "because they are different". In what way they are different apparently didn't matter! Whilst nobody would wish that kind of inane thinking on their worst enemy, it does reflect the stark reality of a complete and utter lack of innovation from successive Governments.
As you say, a stark reality.
Ashley Church was interview by Leah Panapa on the Platform today. His excoriation of TOP was sublime. Their policies are just so daft it’s almost funny.
Might I suggest you could initiate a programme to teach our kids resilience as an alternative to censorship, Deborah?
I wonder if Erica might consider that..... (sadly, I doubt it)
I recently spent two weeks basking in the warm embrace of northern Australia and actively engaging with my social media apps, such is the sad soul one has become. At no time was my age challenged for the purposes of compliance with Australian law, which surprised me.
Lovely work, Halfling. Thanks.
"New Zealand’s constitutional order is different — no entrenched First Amendment, a Bill of Rights that Parliament can override"......what can we do about this? It is an increasingly urgent problem.
Jeffrey Palmer pops up from time to time. Judith Collins might be coaxed out of her mink-lined gilded prison. She must be disappointed to have had her report over-ridden.
We need a group to work on a Bill of Rights that has gravity. Without it, we are easy meat.
Hard to take the writer seriously when it’s evident the majority of this was written by a LLM. “The [Bill] is stand-alone statue built on two ~load-bearing~ duties.” Even more so when they’re willing to illustrate their article with equally abhorrent AI art.
Seems even former judges aren’t immune from AI psychosis.
I have made no secret about using AI art.
As to the language - as Pilate said - what I have written I have written.
I can'
t help it if I sound like an LLM. Much legal writing has a large formulaic element to it. That said I came across the phrase in another context and it seemed to fit here.
I wrote a piece that I put through an A I checker that suggested it was all A I. It wasn’t.
I disable A I checking because I consider it unreliable. If you don’t like what I write, unsubscribe and go elsewhere.
You might like to check my latest post where I cite my sources.
nothing wrong with Halfling's art. You want us to go back to the caves, spitting a mixture of soot, fat and ochre on the wall, using our hands as stensils? Halfling's artwork is a true and valid celebration of the 70s, and if anything should ever be celebrated, it's the 70s. Before your time, Christian? BC?
All this should be the responsibility of parents, not the govt... the tools for parents to use already exist. Apple and Google have them in their devices.. but the govt ignores that.
That's a stupid attempt and a solid no from me.
If implemented this will go the same way as road planning.
Roads built for vehicular transport to get around with the optimal combo of speed, capacity and safety (in turn balancing vehicle occupants and other road users) end up with roundabouts, speed bumps and 30km zones on SH1 in the never ending pursuit of “safety”.
I urge policy makers to extend the concept of “safety” to the population’s mental health and capacity to put up with being nannied.
At what point does “Safety” become the millstone around our collective necks that drags us down to the bottom? Personally I think it is abundantly clear that the chain is well wrapped around our necks and our nostrils are already under water - let’s hope we slacken those chains sufficiently and in time to prevent us from going fully under.
Never ever trust the Government, any Government especially when they say trust us! This is just another part of the wedge being driven between us and our personal freedoms.
More fine analysis, thanks for the great work Sir Hobbit. I’m with Ani on this, restricting hardware I think is more likely to work. Even if it only partly works, like smoking restrictions, it’ll be better than this lame-o approach. Yup, patents need to do this shit, but too many muppety excuses-for-parents out there now tbh. Society actually needs a huge re-think about its goals & heroes which is a core part of the problem. Kids use social media to get attention, that is their currency. But how to curb the greed that drives businesses to exploit kids by tapping into that false promise is the hard question. Maybe we could just ban advertising on social platforms and nudge to subscriptions instead?
Super article. I see a fine of 10% of turnover would really Sting.
But could we? How and where does NZ do this? Which country and legal system allows this ? What are the costs and complications? What’s the probability of success and collecting the fine?
And if successful, what will DTs reaction be when his obscenely rich tech bro buddies go crying to him?
Oh Barry - there is no such thing as "obscenely rich". You are showing your envy or perhaps soime residual tall poppy.
It’s hard to know if you taking the Mickey or not. But I believe there are obscenely rich. Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos have total net worth of 1.3 Trillion USD. Obscene on a different plane are several German companies who received a great start from their role in the 39..45 Holocaust . “Nazi Billionaires : The Dark History of Germanys Wealthiest Dynasties “ is worth a read.
And no, I certainly don’t envy them. But the serious question remains ie. What is the probability that NZ can fine a social media company an amount that will sting. A final note, I just teleported via TunnelBear to Brisbane and an opened a couple of SM accounts with fake info. No age verification required.
No - not taking the mickey. I don’t see wealth as obscene but then that is a value judgement. I don’t think you can equate Bezos and Zuckerberg alongside Nazi Holocaust profiteers. Amazon and Facebook were created by visionaries who took huge risks that paid off. Obscene - no.
As far as penalties are concerned what I consider as obscene is the State giving itself the power to block access in serious cases.
Ignoring your comment about DT and any tech bro buddies he may have, I think you have a good point about tiny little NZ trying to apply a huge fine against a massive multinational.
I imagine the outcome could be the multi deciding to block NZ access to their platform, because we're so inconsequential to them.
Think I saw a report, back when Aus was formulating its blockage plans, that YouTube had threatened the Aussies with blocking access and that Aus initially said they would consider excluding YouTube from the legislation, before changing their minds....
I find it hard to believe the SM lot are trying Just post some copyright material and see a very quick DMCA takedown, so obviously their AI engines are effective. ( and more capable every day) So how hard would it for them to accept a list of objectionable content from NZ and delete it. Yes, there will be false positives. About 15 yrs ago I was working as an Avionics engineer and ran foul of the company email system by using naughty words like “cockpit grips”. “Male and female connector contacts” and. Paris Trip. The latter was parsed to … strip !
Hilarious and dumber than dumb.
BUT, even if they agreed Barry, WHO decides what's objectionable, beyond the extreme stuff that I would hope they already block most of....??
Any reason why we couldn't launch our own national platform? Barring flacid passivity?
None at all. One of the joys of the Digital Paradigm is the quality of permissionless innovation. But to modify an axiom - if you build it they MAY come...
Good, that's reassuring. And while they're at it, could we please have an NZED, like the one where I had my first job, and a Post Office, and a decent state-run TV, radio and print outlet, and a phone company that is a strategic asset as well as a good, reliable service?