Source: Radio New Zealand
B416 chief executive Nicole Green speaking at the handover of a petition calling for a ban on social media for under-16 year old. RNZ/Giles Dexter
The Education Minister is promising regulatory change to address social media harm, as a petition calling for a minimum age of 16 for social media access is handed over at Parliament.
National has been keen to implement a ban, but was unable to get the support of ACT to make it a government bill.
Instead, MP Catherine Wedd has introduced it as a member’s bill, while Erica Stanford works on a wider series of regulations.
The B416 group, which has been advocating for a ban, presented the petition, which contained around 45,000 signatures, to Wedd and Stanford.
B416’s chief executive Nicole Green said parents, teachers and clinicians were all grappling with the harm.
“New Zealand does lag behind in legislation in this area, so we have a lot of work to do,” she said.
Olivia Lakeman, 18, who handed over the petition, said she was 14 when she first started seeing eating disorder and self-harm content online.
“Now that I’m aware of it, I can kind of work around the algorithms. But when you’re 14, and that’s what all your friends are watching, it’s kind of difficult to get out of it yourself.”
Lakeman said there would likely be ways to get around the ban, but it was still worth pursuing.
“Having that restriction means that even if it helps just a small group of people stay safe from that harm, that change is so important.”
Education Minister Erica Stanford.
Accepting the petition, Stanford said she likened the social media problem to cars.
“We had cars that were not powerful, that were slow, that drove on the roads. But the more powerful, the faster and the more dangerous they got, the more safety measures we added in,” she said.
“We now have in the hands of our children a device that is more powerful than we have ever known, and there are no protections.”
Wedd said she felt emotional as she addressed the petition’s handover, saying it was a “powerful message” to protect children.
“This is a really important move. We’re seeing governments from around the world moving and I’m really proud that our government is taking a lead.”
Wedd’s bill was drawn from the biscuit tin ballot in October, but with ACT unlikely to support it, the bill would require support from the opposition to go through the legislative process.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said his party would support the bill at its first reading.
“We think there’s a lot more work to do to get the details of this right, we have offered to work with the government on that,” he said.
“We do want to see a solution here. I think we can all see that there’s a problem.”
ACT instead requested an inquiry into digital harm, which was recently heard by Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee.
Leader David Seymour said he hoped the select committee’s findings would inform any future work, as well as any lessons learned from Australia’s upcoming ban.
“The problem is massive, parents are hugely concerned about young people on social media, predatory behaviour, inappropriate content, addiction to doomscrolling, these are massive problems but a ban is too simple as a remedy for that.”
Green acknowledged there were people opposed to a ban, and that there would likely be bumps along the road if and when it was implemented.
“It will be a bit of a long road to get it right, but I don’t think that should stop people from trying. I think our kids are worth too much to say, ‘do you know what? This is too hard, let’s not even try at all’.”
Stanford has also been tasked with exploring options for legislation and implementation of possible restrictions, and expected to announce in the “near future” exactly what that bill would look like.
“We’re looking at a really clever, world-leading approach at how we protect our kids. And we are going to need a regulator. We are going to need a Child Protection Act. And we are going to need some form of a ban,” she said.
“Social media companies love bans, because they know that kids will get around the bans and continue using it anyway, and they don’t have to change their behaviour. What we’re working on is how do we make social media companies change their behaviours?”
According to a RNZ-Reid Research poll from June, 57.8 percent of New Zealanders support a ban.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand