The government is pressing ahead with its ban on social media for under-16 year olds, with the legislation set to be introduced on Monday.
But ACT and New Zealand First will not support the bill.
The bill puts the pressure on social media companies to comply, establishing an online safety regulator and setting up a penalty regime.
Watch the prime minister answer questions about the ban:
Education Minister Erica Stanford, who had been tasked with leading the work on the ban, said the bill would bring New Zealand into line with other countries that were placing greater responsibility on tech companies to protect children online.
“The bill places legal obligations on platforms. No penalties are proposed for children, their parents or caregivers,” Stanford said.
“It doesn’t just introduce a minimum age requirement. It creates an enduring framework that can evolve alongside technology and holds platforms responsible for understanding and reducing the risks they create for children.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon admitted it was unlikely the bill would have its first reading before the end of this Parliamentary term, and it would take some time to get the legislation through Parliament and set the regulator up.
“That’ll be something we have to pick up on the other side of the election, but I hope that many other parties will look at the bill and say ‘that’s a really sensible proposal.'”
Watch the government announcement here:
But ACT and New Zealand First have invoked the ‘agree to disagree clause’, meaning National will need Labour’s support to get the bill past its first reading.
ACT leader David Seymour said protecting children online was serious, but disagreed with National’s approach.
“The National Party wanted to put this out before the election. It’s their right, I wish them luck, but the country does need a more serious solution to this problem.”
Seymour poured scorn on an idea to impose financial penalties on companies that fail to comply of up to 10 percent of their global revenue.
“You just have to look at the idea that the New Zealand government is going to fine a company like Meta 10 percent of its global revenue. That would be $33 billion, which would be great, I mean, the government would be in a massive surplus, but I don’t think they’re going to pay, and that small fact alone shows this is not a serious solution.”
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters called an impromptu media conference at Parliament to respond, saying Luxon should have been more upfront with voters.
“To call it a government bill is a falsity,” he said.
“It is from the National Party, and that should have been explained to you.”
Peters said he intended to investigate how much taxpayers’ money has been spent on the legislation and the “propagandising” around it.
“No matter if the old parties Tweedledum and Tweedledee do it, it’s not fair game if they fail at the taxpayers’ expense,” he said.
“They’re spending packets of money on it when it’s already failed in another country.”
He said such a ban would result in New Zealanders losing “all sorts of freedoms” through the use of digital ID.
But even Labour has indicated it may not support the bill, releasing a letter written by its science and technology spokesperson Reuben Davidson to Stanford.
The letter – which Davidson wrote on Friday – said there were still some matters Labour wanted addressed before it could offer its support.
“I want to be clear that we take this legislation very seriously. The safety of young people in Aotearoa New Zealand is at stake, and the risks they face in increasingly complex online environments are significant. It is critically important that this legislation is in the best possible shape at first reading to ensure it provides a robust safety net for those who need it most,” he wrote.
Among the 79 things Labour was asking were the extent of consultation with children and young people on the bill, how a social media operator could show it has complied, whether the government would publish a full privacy impact assessment, and how the penalties would be enforced.
Davidson also wanted the whole Labour caucus to have access to the bill before deciding whether it could support it.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the party was yet to hear back from Stanford on its concerns.
“We’ll just continue to engage with them in good faith on it,” he said.
The Greens also criticised the bill. Its media and communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon said it did not solve the problem of platforms “churning out harmful and dangerous content” in the first place.
“We need to regulate social media platforms for all users so these platforms are free from harmful content, rather than just trying to limit access for young people while others continue to engage with harmful algorithms,” she said.
“The government needs evidence-based solutions for reducing online harm. We need a government that will take on the dangerous algorithms that fuel division, damage democracy and expose people to extreme misogyny, racism, and hatred.”
What’s in the bill – and what’s not
The bill would require “high risk” platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, X, and Facebook, to take “reasonable steps” to check users were over the age of 16.
The reasonable steps included using existing account information, facial age estimation, digital ID services, and formal ID.
Messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Discord, and online games like Roblox, are not included in the bill.
AI chatbots that are primarily for productivity, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, are also out of scope, but social AI companions are covered by the ban.
File photo.
AFP / Jonathan Raa
Platforms would also be required to regularly assess the risks they posed, and report on how those risks were being identified and reduced.
A factsheet released by the government said those risks included included illegal content, harmful content (such as grooming, cyberbullying, harassment, and AI deepfakes), advertising and behavioural profiling, and service design and function.
The regulator, which will be established within the Department of Internal Affairs, will be able to monitor, investigate and enforce compliance.
Its tools would range from simply gathering information or auditing the age assurance technology used by tech companies, all the way up to geo-blocking or criminal penalties.
The penalties for companies that fail to comply could cost up to 10 percent of their global revenue.
Despite the scepticism from Seymour that the companies would pay up, Stanford said New Zealand was in “lockstep” with other countries, which would be key to the bill’s success.
She believed social media companies would pay up, if it came to it.
“They don’t give a damn about our kids, and they will pay, which is why it was so important to have that percentage of global profits, and we are in lockstep with other countries on that.”
A ban on VPNs is not in the legislation.
Luxon said parents did have a role to play in monitoring what social media platform their children were on, but so did social media companies.
“Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with and it’s affecting their family life, mental health, sleep, and education,” he said.
Parents heard ‘loud and clear’ – Luxon
Despite opposition from his coalition partners, Luxon said the National was pressing ahead as it had heard “loud and clear” from parents and principals around the country that they wanted an intervention.
“We think this is the right thing to be doing, and it’s the right thing to be doing to protect our kids,” he said.
“I appreciate political parties will form their own views about it, but we’ve introduced it to the Parliament, we’ll get to go through the election process. People can come back and and weigh it all up, and we’ll go through a normal process.”
Asked whether banning children from one platform could push them towards other more harmful platforms not covered in the legislation, Stanford said there would always be an argument around a slippery slope, but children were already being exposed to harm.
She indicated the government could look at other harms online, given the bill would establish age verification for YouTube but not to things like pornography.
“This bill sets a framework where we can include other things in the future, but the most important thing is, the only reason that young people know about those other platforms is because of the social media they’re on in the first place,” she said.
“When I speak to parents around the country, from all the experiences that I’ve had, our kids are experiencing social media harm. That’s where they’re seeing these harmful algorithms that we are no match for.”
