Restricting Access to Social Media
New Proposals by the Government
Yesterday I posted an article entitled “Controlling the Narrative”. I expressed a strong view in that article that the best way of managing the potential harms that may be suffered by children and young people online was by parents rather than State activity.
Today I posted a piece about “Content that Crosses the Line” which made it clear from interviews with young people that taking away their devices and banning them from social media was a significant interference with the way in which they lived their lives.
At 9:36 am today an article appeared on the Herald website with the headline “National introduces bill to ban social media for under 16s”
Every bone in my body screams that I should remain silent on this issue - at least for the moment. One reason is that the Social Media Age-Appropriate Users Bill mentioned in the article is not yet available on the Legislation website and therefore any detailed comment on the proposal would be premature.
Another reason is that I am presently engaged in writing a number of articles about regulation of the Internet - a communications medium. This latest development doesn’t change my plans, but it adds another element to the themes that I have been developing.
That said, I am going to make a few preliminary observations about the proposal and will later follow up with a detailed critique of the Bill when it is available.
I shall start by noting some of the material that is published in the Herald.
The Bill is being introduced by Catherine Wedd. It is a Members Bill but it clearly has support from the Prime Minister.
Ms. Wedd remarks as follows:
“As a mother of four children I feel very strongly that families and parents should be better supported when it comes to overseeing their children’s online exposure.
“Parents and principals are constantly telling me they struggle to manage access to social media and are worried about the effect it’s having on their children.
“The bill closely mirrors the approach taken in Australia, which passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill in December 2024.”
“Other jurisdictions are also taking action. Texas recently passed legislation which bans under 18s from social media use and the UK, the EU and Canada all have similar work in train.
“This bill builds on National’s successful and successful cell phone ban in schools and reinforces the Government’s commitment to setting our children up for success.”
The reason for the Bill is the suggestion that “we” (the Government) isn’t managing the risks of social media for children well. Shouldn’t that be the role of parents.
The Prime Minister said that the move is intended to protect young people from bullying, inappropriate content and social media addiction.
He seems to forget that we already have a Harmful Digital Communications Act.
So what does the Bill do?
The Social Media Age-Appropriate Users Bill would put the onus on social media companies to verify that someone is over the age of 16 before they access social media platforms. Currently, there are no legally enforceable age verification measures for social media platforms in New Zealand.
That is a very broad policy statement but immediately it raises a number of red flags.
This Bill proposes to restrict the means by which under 16’s receive and impart information. Thus it has significant implications for freedom of expression guaranteed under section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.
The survey carried out by the Classification Office and reported in the paper “Content that Crosses the Line” makes it clear that many (perhaps most) children and young people live their lives online and per medium social media. (See my article “Content that Crosses the Line”) This proposal, if enacted, will drive that activity underground and encourage dishonesty and deception.
It is unclear what social media platforms are going to come within the scope of the legislation. Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok are obvious targets but what about messaging apps like WhatsApp. And will the Halfling’s Substack have to put an age verification system in place?
There are two parts to the proposal. One is to put in place an age verification system (even the Australians are struggling with that). The second is to prohibit access to social media platforms by <16’s.
As to the second part of the proposal what is unclear whether or not this legislation will apply to future applications to sign up. Alternatively, it is unclear whether or not the proposal will be retrospective - that is whether existing account holders will have to re-register and provide proof of age. This means, first that <16’s who have enjoyed social media interaction with their friends will be taken offline. Secondly, and more importantly it would be retrospective legislation which would breach section 12 of the Legislation Act 2019 which states that “Legislation does not have retrospective effect.” The problem is that Parliament can override that and has done so in the past. But enacting retrospective legislation is a serious business and it not to be undertaken lightly.
It is surprising that the National Party should have moved on this matter and has done so with such haste. Clearly the proposal has been in the pipeline for some time. These things don’t happen overnight. I would suspect that there has been some significant lobbying by the child safety people to get support for such a proposal from the PM.
It is also surprising, given the discontinuing of the Safer Online Services and Web Platforms proposals by Minister Van Velden that this proposal has surfaced. It is unclear whether there is support for this proposal from NZ First and ACT. It seems doubtful at the moment.
I emphasise that these are very much general and preliminary remarks. I await a copy of the Bill and the various Regulatory Impact Statements - not to mention the views of the Social Media Platforms.
I put these ideas out there for the information of my readership. Please feel free to share. You will have gathered from previous articles that this proposal is another example of unnecessary State interference. More detailed articles informed by the detail of the proposals will follow.
I don't know how to say it... I'm continually feeling disappointed and betrayed by the party to which I previously gave my voluntary service..
The solution to these problems should not lie with more and more centralised control. The mobile telephone ban in schools being a good example. The result of this is that schools as institutions are weakened and reduced in every one's eyes. The minister gets a golden tick; but the problem isn't really resolved.
We need the independent institutions in society to be strengthened, not degraded. Banning things by more and more centralised control doesn't help to build up the society, it degrades our ability to find meaningful interactions and connections, by making everyone more atomized and less trustful of others.
If social media use by young people is the problem, then it requires social solutions, not political solutions. The schools should become more focused on creating opportunities for meaningful interactions, activities, clubs, sports - they need to become more organised at this, they need to create opportunities that are more interesting for the young people, more interesting and interactive than chatting via mobile. The only way to resolve this problem is to create alternatives that are more interesting. The time for complete laissez faire is gone, we need to be innovative to create experiences that are more attractive for the youth of today.
And this can apply equally to those that have a tendency to indulge in bullying behaviour via social media - they only do it because of their insecurities, because they don't know how to form genuine meaningful human interactions.....
Each person needs to find their own place in life, we have to do that from the grass roots up - not via centralised control. And for young people, they're still learning, we have to show them how to keep a good perspective on things. Therefore the colleges need to make more effort in this area.... But central government standing over the top of the colleges doesn't improve their status and ability to educate...
I'm going to really stick my neck out here. I was, for a long time, a psychotherapist in private practice and a perennial problem for many parents was struggling with how to set boundaries for their teenagers and survive the consequent toxic fallout. Some gave up the struggle and gave in to their offspring's demands and others managed to hold the line. The former mostly could not tolerate the emotional discomfort of not being "friends" with their teenagers, in spite of an intellectual understanding that their job was to be a parent first and with a bit of luck, a friend second. You can't be both, except very rarely, and this is what's missing in a lot of the discussion. I'm about to head for my bomb shelter now.