Government still taking aim at social media - but coalition backing uncertain
Tuesday, 24 February 2026
The Government will make decisions “very, very shortly” about a social media ban for under 16s, says Education Minister Erica Stanford.
It has now been more than a month since Stanford told The Post that “an announcement will be made in the next few weeks”.
Speaking at an Auckland primary school on Tuesday, the minister said there were “a lot of moving parts”.
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“I have got a Cabinet paper that is going through very, very shortly, so we will have more to say.”
Stanford said she wanted to make sure she got it right and was watching “very closely” what was happening in Australia, Europe and the United Kingdom.
At the end of last year, Australia introduced a ban for under-16s and committed to age-verification systems for major platforms. In Europe, the Digital Services Act requires platforms to assess and reduce risks to children and mental health.
The UK is also moving toward a “duty of care” model, which would require platforms to remove illegal content quickly and protect children from harmful but legal material.
“There is a real benefit to being fast followers, and for us to be able to pick up anything that we can improve on has been extraordinarily useful,” Stanford told The Post on Tuesday.
However, coalition partner Act continues not to support a ban, citing concerns about the workability. The party is waiting to see what Stanford brings to Cabinet before it decides whether it will support the proposal or enact the “agree to disagree” provision which would require National to seek support from an opposition party.
Stanford said there were “a number of people who’ve got concerns”.
“There’s nothing to do with the delay, but we want to make sure we can address those concerns through this process as best we can and that means not just talking to our coalition partners, but all of Parliament.”
Stanford is also drafting a second piece of legislation - which she has described as having “more teeth”.
Other countries have Child Prot
ection Acts and online regulators which New Zealand doesn’t have - Stanford said this will form part of that legislation because there was power in countries moving in lock-step to force change from the social media platforms.
“I know the thing about a ban is that social media companies love a ban because kids can get around it. It really is a tool to say to parents ‘this is unacceptable, we’re not going to allow this anymore’. It is a social change.
“But the way you get social media companies to change their behaviour … is that they’re having to report on certain things, that they’re being properly regulated.”