‘Your kids are being hurt’: He knows the harm social media does - because he helped build it

Friday, 22 May 2026

Former Meta employee Ravi Iyer has warned New Zealand legislators that delaying a social media age limit will compound harm to kids.

Education Minister Erica Stanford says she will introduce a new Government bill in the next few weeks.

Iyer suggests focusing regulation on harmful features like engagement-based algorithms, infinite scroll, and streak gamification.

As progress on a potential social media ban for under-16s stalls in New Zealand, a world-leading expert on social media harm warns the time to act is now.

Ravi Iyer is a social psychologist and the Managing Director of the Psychology of Technology Institute, a project of the University of Southern California’s Neely Centre. He has unique insight into how social media platforms operate, having worked at Facebook from 2018 to 2022.

“I worked on newsfeed ranking, bullying and harassment, and comment ranking,” Iyer told Stuff. “What I learned was that you can't actually design a platform badly and then try to fix it through moderation. You actually have to design a platform better in the first place.”

After leaving Facebook, Iyer contributed to Jonathan Haidt’s influential book The Anxious Generation, whose publication coincided with a slew of social media regulations across the globe. A social media ban for under-16s is now in effect in Australia, with Spain, France, the UK, and many others exploring their own restrictions.

While experts disagree over how much the harms experienced by young people online are correlated with social media versus caused by it, Iyer says when it comes to some of the most extreme harms, the link is clear.

“When a kid is contacted on social media by a stranger and gets into some kind of relationship with this fake person who wants to have a romantic relationship, and then kills himself when that person starts to blackmail them with [explicit] photos—there is no other explanation other than social media for why that happened,” says Iyer.

A study commissioned by the Australian Government in 2025 found that 96% of children aged 10–15 used social media, and that seven out of 10 had been exposed to harmful content.

A recent Education and Workforce Committee report in New Zealand concluded: “Harm to young New Zealanders from online platforms is severe and requires urgent responses from Government, business, and society alike.”

The Australia ban

Iyer praises the Australian social media ban, saying it is already showing great results. However, he argues the language of a ‘ban’ can be unhelpful, preferring to call it an age limit. He notes children can still access the internet and many of these platforms, but simply can’t create an account that allows for personalised algorithmic feeds and individual contact.

“After this policy passed, 43% of parents said that they saw their kids actually interacting more in person as a result. And that's what we want to see. We're seeing progress on age verification; as enforcement gets better and as norms change, we're going to see much more progress.”

Addressing concerns about teens bypassing potential legislation using virtual private networks (VPNs) or children being pushed to darker corners of the internet, Iyer argues that these are not reasons to delay action. He says norm changes—where children feel less social pressure to be on platforms—are already occurring, and the goal is not immediate 100% compliance. He compares the policy to drinking ages or speed limits, where partial compliance still yields significant social benefits.

“We started building cars in 1908 and we didn't get seat belts until the '60s. Eventually, you learn the physics of cars and you realize we need seat belts,” he explains. “I think it's also becoming obvious that algorithms optimized for what kids can pay the most attention to are also harmful, and you just learn the physics of social media just like we had to learn the physics of cars.”

The situation here

Here in New Zealand, our own efforts to address social media harm have hit a roadblock.

Last year, a member's bill from National Party backbencher Catherine Wedd was drawn from the ballot, proposing a similar framework to the one implemented in Australia. At the time, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he backed the bill. Then last week, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced work was ‘pausing’ on the bill, taking the unusual step of seeking cross-parliamentary support to delay it so it would not reach the debating chamber.

Stanford told Stuff she would have her own Government bill introduced in the next few weeks, which would look at broader legislative change.

A common issue facing potential bans is how broadly to define ‘social media’. While there are similarities between them, a platform like YouTube operates very differently from a platform like Snapchat, but both can potentially expose young people to harm.

Iyer suggests moving away from broad, purpose-based definitions and instead focusing on harmful features, such as engagement-based algorithms, infinite scroll, and 'streak' gamification—where users are incentivised to return to the platform every day.

He says one way New Zealand could expand on the regulations would be to apply them to any product that incorporates these specific addictive mechanics, even those not traditionally labelled social media, such as certain video game platforms.

But he stresses that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and too much delay will only cause harm to compound.

“There is urgency here,” Iyer says. “It is not something where you can just wait and wait and wait. Now, if there's a genuine desire to pass something twice as effective a month later, sure, great, do that.”

His message to New Zealand legislators considering inaction is blunt.

“Your kids are being hurt every day. This is not a theoretical issue. You have an opportunity to improve those parents' lives in a very tangible way that you don't often get. The sooner you do it, the sooner the parents in your community will thank you and give you the credit you deserve. Don't delay. Take action. You can always make things better in the future, but the best time to take action is today.”

This week Stuff is reporting in-depth on the proposed social media ban. Are you a parent, a teacher, or a teenager with a view? We want to hear from you about the harms of social media. Let us know what you think in the comments or you can provide a more expansive take in the form below. We’ll publish a selection of the best comments.