The Government is in the final stages of considering legislation that would ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms, with a final Cabinet paper expected to be considered within the next few weeks.
According to a report by Stuff, the move comes as international momentum builds around tighter regulation of social media use by young people. This week, the United Kingdom announced plans to follow Australia's lead by introducing its own ban, with implementation expected early next year.
Education Minister Erica Stanford, who is leading New Zealand's work on the issue, said the growing number of countries taking action strengthened the case for reform.
“This is now sort of a tsunami of countries who are wanting to protect young people from big tech, essentially,” she said, as quoted by Stuff.
Stanford said the Government could not afford to delay action while continuing to observe overseas developments.
“Every minute that we waste, another young girl has been fed awful information about her weight and her looks, and she’s being told that, ‘how about you know going to use this blade to cut yourself’,” she said, Stuff has quoted.
“We cannot afford to wait to make sure that we're protecting our young people from these harms,” as quoted by Stuff.
The minister acknowledged that restricting access to social media would not completely eliminate the problem but argued it would provide families with much-needed support.
“I’ve never said that a ban is going to be immediately effective at 100% of young people. Remember, it’s like cocaine, it is highly addictive,” she said, Stuff has quoted.
“It will take a while for societal attitudes to change towards something like that, but parents are desperate for something to help them,” as quoted by Stuff.
Despite strong backing from Stanford and the Prime Minister, support from coalition partners remains uncertain.
Last month, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and ACT leader David Seymour both indicated they would not support the legislation unless significant changes were made. While both parties have expressed support for protecting young people online, ACT has questioned whether the proposal is workable, while New Zealand First has raised concerns about the potential implications of requiring a form of digital identification to access social media platforms.
Stanford declined to comment on ongoing discussions with coalition partners or whether their concerns had been resolved.
“I’m not going to foreshadow what they are going to say. We still got one more Cabinet paper to come through, and so I will have to wait for that,” she said, Stuff has quoted.
The Government may also receive support from the opposition. Labour has signalled a willingness to work with ministers on a social media ban, although Labour leader Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday that Stanford had not yet shared any details of the proposal with his party, as reported by Stuff.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is also considering introducing a nighttime social media curfew for users under 18 in an effort to reduce excessive screen time and endless scrolling.
Stanford said she personally supported the idea of limiting social media use late at night but confirmed it was not part of the current proposal, Stuff has reported.
She indicated that if New Zealand were to explore a curfew model, it would likely form part of a later phase of reforms rather than the legislation currently before Cabinet.
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