How would banning New Zealand teenagers from social media work?
The National government is proposing a ban on those under 16 using social media.
New Zealand has followed Australia by proposing a bill that, if passed, would ban those under 16 years old from using social media.
As the process to enact a new law is in its earliest stages, there is much we don’t know.
We don’t know if it will pass and if it does, what the final legislation will look like. There are questions around what technology exists to verify social media users' age and whether a blanket ban on social media for younger ages will help solve what has been described as a mental health crisis in teens.
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What is the bill?
If passed, the bill would require social media companies to verify that users are at least 16 years old before allowing them to sign up.
It doesn’t specify what companies would be impacted by this. In Australia, YouTube is exempt from the ban because of its apparent educational value for some of its content.
Currently, most social media companies, such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, state that users should be at least 13 years before signing up. However, no stringent system is used to verify ages, so kids can simply lie about their age. There are also no repercussions for tech companies for allowing young users to sign up.
Why does the government think this is necessary?
Debates are raging around the world about the impacts of social media and whether the positives outweigh the negatives.
Social media can offer benefits of convenience and connectivity, especially to marginalised groups such as the LGBTQIA+ community. However, there is growing research that suggests social media can negatively impact mental health, sleep, body image and even increase feelings of loneliness, according to a briefing from the Public Health Communication Centre. At least one of its authors, public health researcher Dr Samantha Marsh, is part of B416, a group advocating for the ban.
B416 co-chair Anna Curzon told RNZ’s Midday Report that social media apps “are made to be addictive” and parents face an uphill battle to help their kids develop healthy relationships with them.
“These are billion-dollar algorithms, and these big tech companies are savvier than parents and, quite frankly, teenagers are savvier than their parents in getting around these restrictions.”
Anna Curzon, chief product officer at Xero and member of the Prime Minister's
Supplied.
National Tukituki MP Catherine Wedd, who put the bill forward, says it is designed to protect “young people from bullying, inappropriate content and social media addiction".
Even technology companies are concerned about the impact of their product on young minds. Internal documents leaked to the Wall Street Journal in 2021 show that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has known about the negative impacts of Instagram on teenager girls' mental health for years.
Who gets penalised?
No, the police will not barge into your home if your child somehow manages to skirt any future law and sign up for social media.
Like the Australian law, New Zealand’s bill puts the onus on tech companies to check ages. The draft law proposes fining social media companies up to $2 million if they do not verify users’ ages.
Wayne Hope, a communications professor at Auckland University of Technology, doesn’t support a blanket ban. However, he does support the bill’s emphasis on holding social media companies accountable for the age of users.
“You can see where the problem is that this exposure of young people, all this social media and TikTok-type information, is extremely lucrative for the companies involved,” says Hope, pointing to the NZ$2.7 trillion market capitalisation of Meta.
“So their profits are being generated at the expense of the mental health of young people.”
How will social media companies verify ages?
Many questions have been asked in Australia over whether it is even possible to consistently prevent sign-ups on social media for those under 16. Currently, the Australian government is testing about 30 submissions by technology providers who claim they can provide this service.
New Zealand company MyMahi created one of those submissions. Its co-founder and former deputy principal, Jeff King, says the technology does exist.
“[New Zealand is] so far behind, so it's almost like there is a bit of a reaction saying ‘Oh, the tech is not there, but it is.
“Have a look around. It’s everywhere. It’s just not here in the same way it is in other countries.”
MyMahi’s submission proposes using years of data, including photos, that a child builds up over time through the school system to verify age. The company is already working with about a third of New Zealand secondary schools, providing young people with a digital student ID.
The company is working on a pilot program with the Reserve Bank to use the MyMahi system for verifying a young person's identity to open a bank account.
“When you get a bank account, it’s really tough for young people because they don’t have the ID, and the systems are outdated.”
University of Auckland lecturer Shohil Kishore told RNZ’s Morning Report that implementation of the ban would likely be costly.
"I don't think [social media companies] are going to like doing this. It will just be extra work for them, but it is really important for us as a country to think about how we can regulate technology to best serve us.”
Who is against the ban?
The Act Party, National’s coalition partner, has spoken out against the ban with party leader David Seymour calling it "simple, neat and wrong".
He told RNZ’s Morning Report that he is concerned about the impact of social media on children, and he wanted to explore solutions through a public inquiry.
Alex Beattie, a lecturer in media and communications at the Victoria University of Wellington, agreed that social media can have negative side effects, but questioned the wisdom of an outright ban. He argued that some people have positive experiences with social media, including providing a space for those from marginalised groups to find support.
The 20-year-old content creator behind the Oceania Today Instagram news account, which has 177,000 followers, says that enforcing a ban is not a good use of resources. His name is Charlie, and he asked that his last name not be used to protect his privacy.
“....I think if we had better mental health resources in general, that could have been a better approach than just banning social media in regards to that side of their reasoning for wanting to ban it.
“Because I had a lot of friends who went to the mental health system back [when they were teenagers] and it was pretty terrible and it kind of sucked really badly.”
And ultimately, he believes young people will figure out how to get around whatever mechanisms are put in place to verify the ages of social media users.
The co-founder of Gen-Z Aotearoa, 16-year-old Lola Fisher, wants the government to include the voices of young people in the conversation about social media. Gen-Z Aotearoa supports other youth-led organisations.
“Young people are the future, and we are going to inherit all these decisions that are being made," Fisher, told RNZ's Checkpoint, "so why not discuss them with us now and often you will find that young people will have solutions for the problems that you are putting forward".
