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Bill to ban NZ kids from social media – Expert Reaction

Expert Reactions  |  Published:

The government is introducing an Online Safety Bill to make social media companies verify user ages and assess their risks to child safety.

Verification could work using face scans, ID, credit cards, and other methods.

The Bill covers ‘age-restricted platforms’ like TikTok and Facebook, as well as AI ‘social companions’ – and excludes gaming and messaging services like Roblox or Discord.

The SMC asked NZ experts to comment.

Associate Professor Cara Swit, Faculty of Health, University of Canterbury, comments:

“I absolutely support taking young people’s online safety seriously, and I strongly support placing much greater responsibility on technology companies for the environments they create. But I am not convinced that banning social media for under-16s is the answer.

“The research evidence on bans and restrictions is currently very mixed. We need to keep investing in high-quality, robust research so that policy is driven by evidence, rather than by increasingly alarmist and one-sided narratives that overlook the complexity of young people’s digital lives. Otherwise, policies like this effectively become large-scale experiments involving our young people.
“Our own research in Aotearoa has shown that young people can and do find ways around restrictions. We have seen this with school phone bans: even when young people are prohibited from using their physical phones during school hours, they can still access many of the things those policies were intended to restrict. A social media ban will face the same challenge, with tools such as VPNs providing a relatively simple way around restrictions.”We should also be asking difficult questions about the privacy implications of requiring young people to verify their age through facial estimation, digital identification or other personal information. Why are we not more concerned about what happens to young people’s digital identity data in this process?

“And why 16? Nothing developmentally magical happens on a young person’s 16th birthday that suddenly equips them to navigate social media safely. Many children begin interacting with digital technologies from infancy. The much more important question is what we are doing throughout those years to build their skills, judgement, confidence and safety nets.
“We teach children how to cross roads safely; we do not keep them away from roads until 16 and then expect them to know what to do. Digital environments also require teaching, scaffolding, practice and ongoing conversations with trusted adults. Bans can remove those opportunities and send a strong message that social media use is simply “bad”, potentially making young people less likely to seek adult help when something does go wrong because they fear judgement or punishment.
“Most importantly, some of the major concerns researchers have about social media are the algorithms and data practices designed to capture and retain young people’s attention. An age ban does not fundamentally change those systems. It simply delays exposure to them. We should be asking much more of big tech: make these environments safer, reduce harmful design and data practices, and take genuine responsibility for the digital spaces young people are growing up in.”Conflict of interest statement: “None.”

Dr Cassandra Mudgway, Senior Lecturer Above the Bar, Faculty of Law, University of Canterbury, comments: 

“There is a lot to welcome in this Bill.

“A dedicated online safety regulator with enforcement powers is long overdue, and requiring platforms to assess the risks they create and explain how they are reducing those risks is a significant shift towards platform accountability.

“But I am much less convinced that an under-16 social media ban will achieve what the Government hopes it will. Australia is already showing the limits of this approach: three months after its ban came into effect, more than 80% of 10–15-year-olds were still using social media. Account ownership fell, but many children continued to access platforms because age assurance was ineffective or could be circumvented.

“There is also a potentially significant privacy cost to requiring people to prove their age through facial age estimation, digital ID or formal identification.

“We should regulate the platforms that create and profit from online harm. That means requiring them to identify and reduce foreseeable harm, including misogyny, sexual exploitation and gender-based violence. A ban may reduce some children’s access but it will not make the online environment safe.

“There is a real opportunity here to build a serious online safety regime, and the proposed regulator is an important step in that direction. But I worry about a pattern here: reach first for a simple age ban, then promise more comprehensive regulation down the track. Women and girls have already waited long enough for platforms to be made safer. We need regulation that addresses the harms being produced by these platforms now, not just who is allowed through the front door.”

Conflict of interest statement: “No conflicts.”

Dr Rachel Tan, Lecturer in Law, Te Piringa Faculty of Law, University of Waikato, comments:

“The proposed Bill represents a significant shift in New Zealand’s approach to online safety. It goes beyond simply restricting social media access for under-16s and moves towards a statutory duty of care approach; placing greater responsibility on tech companies to identify and mitigate risks created by their services. Requiring platforms to assess harmful content, behavioural profiling and their own design features, including algorithms, recognises that online safety is not simply the responsibility of children and their parents.

“The effectiveness of the regime will, however, depend heavily on its implementation. Age assurance remains technically and legally challenging. It is positive that the proposed framework provides for multiple methods and privacy safeguards, rather than requiring everyone to provide formal identification. But methods such as facial age estimation, digital ID and analysis of existing account information still raise important questions about accuracy, privacy and how these systems will operate in practice.

“The inclusion of AI companion platforms is also significant, although the distinction between companion AI and excluded general-purpose chatbots will need careful attention as these technologies and the ways young people use them increasingly overlap.”

Conflict of interest statement: “None.”

Dr Samantha Marsh, Senior Research Fellow, General Practice & Primary Healthcare, University of Auckland, comments:

“I think this is an important first step. For too long we’ve asked parents and kids to solve this on their own, and that hasn’t worked. Parents need support. They keep telling us they can’t manage this issue on their own, and kids are finding easy workarounds to access social media by just changing their date of birth. Meanwhile, it’s become the social norm in NZ for teens to spend hours a day on social media, even though a substantial proportion say they wish it had never been invented.

“An age restriction will not be 100% effective, but it is an important first step. It helps to empower parents to say no, adds friction for kids trying to create social media accounts, and, over time, helps shift social norms, making it easier to keep kids and young adolescents off these platforms. We can’t wait for these companies to make their products safer. They will fight regulation as much as possible and, even if forced to change their platforms, it remains to be seen whether social media can be made safe for kids. Until that is proven in research, restrictions like this one are a sensible and necessary precaution.”

Conflict of interest statement: “I am the academic advisor for B416.”