New Zealand’s government introduced legislation on Monday to ban under 16s from using social media, joining a number of countries seeking to keep youngsters off sites such as Instagram and TikTok.
“We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said. “One in three children aged between 13 and 17 are now spending at least five hours on social media a day,” he said. Education Minister Erica Stanford said the Bill “places legal obligations on platforms”. “No penalties are proposed for children, their parents or caregivers,” Stanford said.
It’s unclear whether the bill will pass, as both National Party’s coalition partners, the libertarian ACT party and populist NZ First, have said they oppose it. In a statement, the populist NZ First said they could not support the law given the “colossal failure” of the legislation in Australia, while ACT said they believed the law “won’t work” and that teenagers would easily get around the ban. “We take this legislation very seriously,” spokesman Reuben Davidson said.
