New Zealand to introduce Bill banning social media for children under 16
“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,” New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said.
Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and Reddit applications are displayed on a mobile phone in this picture illustration taken on Dec 9, 2025. (File photo: Reuters/Hollie Adams)
Read a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
SYDNEY: New Zealand’s conservative coalition government will introduce a Bill in parliament on Monday (Aug 24) that seeks to ban children under 16 from using social media, and proposes fines of up to 10 per cent of a platform’s global revenue for non-compliance.
The Bill would require social media platforms to take reasonable steps to verify users’ ages, including by using existing account information, facial technology and digital identity documents.
“We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said in a statement.
“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,” Luxon said.
Guess Word
Crack the word, one row at a time
Buzzword
Create words using the given letters
Mini Sudoku
Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser
Mini Crossword
Small grid, big challenge
Word Search
Spot as many words as you can
It was not immediately clear if the bill would garner sufficient support to pass through Parliament, with one of Luxon’s coalition partners, the New Zealand First party, saying it would not support it.
“We have been concerned with the proposed legislation and the direction and slippery slope that legislation like this will inevitably take our country,” New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who is also the country’s foreign minister, said in a post on X.
In December, Australia became the world’s first country to ban social media for children under 16, blocking them from platforms including TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook.
That legislation had been a “colossal failure,” Peters said, adding that keeping children off social media should be the responsibility of parents.
“I won’t pretend that it will be simple or that it will be perfect,” Luxon said at an event.
“We won’t get every single child off social media. Some will always find ways around it, but frankly, it’s just way too important not to at least try.”
Source: Reuters/rk
Sign up for our newsletters
Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
About The Author
