Parliamentary inquiry backs under-16 social media ban, and discusses going much further

Wednesday, 10 December 2025

The report comes as the world eyes how Australia will fare with its ban on under-16s setting up social media accounts.

The majority of MPs involved in a select committee inquiry into online harm have backed following Australia’s lead by restricting under-16s’ access to social media, but they also advise considering a raft of other controls and the creation of a new regulator.

“Preliminarily, the majority of us support restricting access to social media for under-16-year-olds,” they said.

However, they tentatively backed going much further through the other measures they said should be considered.

Parliament’s Education and Workforce select committee kicked off its inquiry into the harms young New Zealanders encounter online in June, and called for the Government to play a stronger role regulating online platforms.

Their interim report, which the committee published today and expects to finalise early next year, said online platform providers weren’t doing enough to address the gravity of harms experienced, which they listed as including unsafe content such as cyber-bullying, doxxing and “sextortion”.

National MP Carl Bates, the committee’s acting chair, said the stories he had heard from public submissions were “deeply concerning”.

“We intend to further consider whether the Government should play a stronger role in regulating the design of online platforms and mandating online safety features,” the report said.

“In particular, the majority of us consider there is a strong case that platforms should be made to provide more transparency on how their algorithms work.

“Algorithms operate in ways typically obscured to users, making millions of decisions on their behalf. While there may be some benefits to personalising a user’s experience, the majority of us believe the risk of algorithmic harm outweighs any advantage.”

Labour media and communications spokesperson Reuben Davidson said the inquiry’s initial findings backed his own views, reflected in a private members’ bill he drew up, that “age restriction is an option, but we shouldn’t pretend it is going to solve the problems”.

“What we need to see is ‘safety by design’, transparency and an independent regulator,” he said.

The ACT Party initiated the inquiry but says its report had “drifted noticeably from its intended purpose”.

“Simply committing to turn it off for everyone under-16 doesn’t fix the inherent problems in social media platforms.”

The inquiry’s interim findings were not supported by the ACT Party, which originally requested the inquiry in an apparent bid to seize the agenda away from a private members’ bill drafted by National Party MP Catherine Wedd that separately proposed an under-16 ban.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon reiterated today that he supported that goal.

“I feel very personally invested in actually ensuring that we ultimately deliver on our own ban ourselves here in New Zealand,” he said.

“What we’ve said is we want to introduce legislation before the end of the term.

“We need to make sure we’ve got guidelines and guardrails in place for our kids in the virtual world, as we do in the physical world.”

To showcase party support for the ban, National MP Barbara Kuriger and Labour MP Helen White hosted an exhibition at Parliament called “Worst Children’s Library”, featuring more than 1000 books representing harm children had seen online.

Each book was a visual representation of online harm a child had experienced, drawn from hundreds of data sources,

“My hope is by seeing the ‘Worst Children’s Library’ today, all MPs regardless of their party will be willing to come together to start seriously discussing the actions we can take,” White said.

An exhibition at Parliament is designed to draw attention to the online horrors accessible to children.

Kuriger said it was “hard to imagine what children can easily access online”.

“Seeing it all together in a library, which is usually a safe space, is incredibly confronting and really highlights the risk of harm and the need to protect our tamariki.”

The ACT Party said in its dissenting opinion to the inquiry’s interim report that it had “drifted noticeably from its intended purpose”.

“Rather than simply laying the groundwork of understanding the issue at hand for a more comprehensive second report in early 2026, the interim report leans heavily into recommendations on policy options. This is premature and risks compromising the quality and integrity of the final report,” it said.

ACT leader David Seymour told The Post he didn’t regret calling for the inquiry, however.

“I did it because I want to find out more, and that’s what we’re doing.”

The Green Party said it supported the majority of the potential solutions the inquiry had identified but did not believe that restricting access to social media platforms for under-16-year-olds would address the concerns identified.

Co-leader Marama Davidson said instead of removing social media from young people, New Zealand should hold billionaire offshore tech giants to account for the harm that they held on their platforms.

The measures the inquiry believes merit further consideration

1. Restricting access to social media platforms for under-16s (which it made clear it backed).

2. Regulating deepfake tools or “nudify” apps.

3. Looking into whether the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act are fit for purpose.

4. Introducing a national regulator for online safety.

5. Examining whether regulatory approaches could be made sufficiently agile to respond to new developments in technology as they occur.

6. What role the Government should play in regulating the design of online platforms.

7. Whether there is a need to restrict online advertising of harmful products, such as alcohol, tobacco, and gambling for under-18s.

8. The level of liability online platforms and internet service providers should be held to for harmful and illegal content hosted through their services.

9. The level of responsibility that parents should have in protecting their children from online harm and the tools they would need to provide this support effectively.

10. Advantages and limitations of approaches to increase “algorithm transparency”.

11. Ways to learn from international experiences, including the implementation of the social media ban for under-16-year-olds in Australia.

12. Ways to encourage further research on online experiences.