Mediawatch: Sudden surge of political concern about social media

RNZ News

10-05-2025

The PM and National MP Catherine Wedd on TikTok announcing her Members Bill to restrict use of social media platforms to people over 16.
Photo:
TikTok
On their ZM show last Wednesday, Fletch, Vaughn, and Hayley listed things they'd ban for teenagers if they could.
"When I go to the mall, they're bloody crawling everywhere, aren't they? Oh, my God," spluttered Fletch.
"How do they get the money? I was at the mall the other day and there were all these kids and they had like, shopping bags. I know, it's like, where do you get the money?" asked Hayley.
It was a mocking response to news from the day before.
The Prime Minister and National MP Catherine Wedd teamed up on social media to
unveil her Member's Bill
to restrict social media for under 16s.
"As a Dad, I feel very strongly that we need to do more to keep our kids safe from online harm," Luxon said on TikTok - and other platforms he didn't want under-16s to use.
"We have restrictions to keep our children safe in the physical world, but we don't have restrictions in the virtual world - and we should," he said
What young people should and shouldn't do has been a theme in politics lately - and our media have picked it up and run with it.
Last week
a call to bring in compulsory national military service
for young Kiwis received some enthusiastic backing on talk radio.
The ban on phones in schools last year got widespread media approval too. (The effort to cut back their school lunches ... not so much).
"Restricting access puts the onus on social media companies to verify someone is over the age of 16. It mirrors the approach taken in Australia and follows work in other countries like the UK, the EU and Canada," Wedd said, alongside the PM.
If the goal was to get the
Media Age-Appropriate Users Bill
talked about in the media, it worked.
Within minutes, Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills endorsed the idea on Newstalk ZB.
At the other end of the working day, the idea was discussed at length on RNZ's Panel and Newstalk ZB's equivalent, The Huddle.
"It's a good idea in principle. Evidence shows there's harm to younger people. Kids younger than 13 are not allowed on social media ... but I think there's strong evidence to show that 16 is a good age for that," former Facebook CEO for Australia and New Zealand, Stephen Scheeler
told Newstalk ZB
.
The proposed ban was big news on both 6pm TV news bulletins too.
But it's in the Members Bill biscuit tin along with dozens of others drafted by hopeful MPs. It will only go before Parliament if it's picked out in the ballot.
The odds are even longer for this Bill under this government, even though the PM himself backed it.
If online safety is really a big issue for National and the PM, a bigger hitter in his Cabinet could have backed the Bill.
Communications and media minister Paul Goldsmith for example - who the PM hailed as one of his 'aces in place' when he gave him that job last year - is currently pushing proposals to update the way media are regulated.
The other sensible choice would be the Minister of Internal Affairs, whose department oversees digital safety and online services.
But in this coalition, that's Brooke Van Velden - also deputy leader of ACT, which doesn't believe this is the government's business.
"I'm really worried about social media's effect but for every problem there's a solution that is simple, neat and ... wrong. Just slapping on a ban hastily drafted won't solve the real problem," Act leader David Seymour
told reporters
last Tuesday.
"Australia's passed a law that hasn't come into effect yet and already they've had to carve out YouTube," he added.
Australia's impending ban - also personally backed by their PM who has just won an election- does indeed exclude YouTube.
TikTok complained it was like
banning fizzy drinks
, but exempting Coca-Cola].
In
an RNZ article
about that last week the Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden said: "A minimum age for social media is not something the New Zealand Government is considering."
Catherine Wedd told the media this week she'd been working on her Bill for a year. Clearly she and Act and are not on the same page.
Or Labour.
The former government's proposals for a one-stop shop to regulate media -
Safer Online Services and media Platforms
- were
scrapped by Van Velden a year ago
.
Soon after Wedd's Members Bill was unveiled on Tuesday, former District Court Judge David Harvey - an expert on internet law - said the main problem was the onus on social media companies to verify users' age.
"Currently, there are no legally enforceable age verification measures for social media platforms in New Zealand," he said
on his Substack
.
Wedd had called the bill "a result for concerned parents" on RNZ's Morning Report, but Mike Hosking challenged MP Catherine Wedd on that soon after.
"I'm a parent. Don't sell me the emotion. Sell me the technical answer. You don't have it. Technically, we simply don't know how to do it," he told her.
On Substack, David Harvey also said if the problem is bullying and inappropriate content, we already have a law for that:
the Harmful Digital Communications Act
.
Also, many children and young people today already live their lives online and via social media - including those now under 16 who would be forced to stop.
That's set it out in
Content that Crosses the Line
, a report on how young New Zealanders operate online, what alarms them and what they think they need protection from.
It's the work of The Classification Office, an agency set up long before the internet ever existed.
The survey found social media platforms use is widespread, in spite of minimum age requirements.
Young people interviewed said taking away their devices and banning them from social media would be a significant interference with the way in which they lived their lives.
"(They) engage with social media and other online content for the same reasons as adults: to make and maintain social connections, access entertainment, stay informed, explore their interests, and express themselves. Most young people grow up with consistent access to online content, and the use of social media is generally seen as a normal part of life."
The report also concluded young users know their content feeds are shaped by their own activity. This highlighted "how little control they often feel they have" over what they're shown by the opaque algorithms of the platforms.
"Some participants talked about how harmful or disturbing content can appear unexpectedly while scrolling through social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat --- even when they hadn't searched for it."
There's plenty more in that report - but it was ignored by media when was released last week.
That's in stark contrast to the announcement of a Members Bill that may never even be debated in Parliament, let alone passed into law.
If so, it'll be another failed effort in the lives of an entire generation that has grown up online without any serious steps to moderate the internet.
Back in 2011, justice minister Simon Power ordered a review into what he called the ''wild west'' online world. The Law Commission recommended major reform of New Zealand's regulators and watchdog agencies.
A decade and a half later, New Zealand still has the same pre-Internet era organisations regulating media.
None of them really marshall the internet for the good of New Zealanders, whether they're over 16 or not.
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