New Zealand prime minister proposes Australia-style social media ban

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has unveiled a proposed law banning children younger than 16 from using social media platforms, citing what he said on Monday was “harm being done to a generation” of young people.

If re-elected in November, Mr Luxon is seeking to make his conservative government the latest worldwide to enact age restrictions for social media platforms after Australia enacted its world-first under-16s social media ban in December 2025.

“We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children,” Mr Luxon said in a statement.

He said 2025 research showed a third of New Zealand teenagers spent at least five hours a day on social media.

Platforms would be fined 10 per cent of their revenue

Under the law, platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook could be fined up to 10 per cent of their global revenue for failing to meet their obligations — taking “reasonable steps”  to check users were older than 16.

This could include “existing account information, facial age estimation, digital ID services and formal ID,” according to material supplied by Mr Luxon’s party.

Like Australia, New Zealand would not penalise parents or children under the proposed bill. However, its penalty system differs from Australia’s approach of imposing a maximum fine of $99 million.

Excluded from both Australia’s ban and New Zealand’s proposed law are messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, online gaming platforms like Roblox and AI apps with productivity uses — including ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot.

Proposal comes amid criticism of Australia’s ban

Loading…

Mr Luxon’s government has considered such a law since Australia’s world-first social media ban for under 16-year-olds took effect in December 2025. 

Since Australia’s law came into force, countries including Canada, Brazil and Indonesia have enacted bans too, while many other countries are studying or developing laws. 

Child safety advocates and some parents have welcomed age restrictions, while privacy groups say the rules can be cheated and that forcing users to supply identification raises privacy concerns.

Professor Nicholas Carah, director of the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies at the University of Queensland, says there are “two big problems that other countries ought to learn from the Australian experience”.

“The first is that the ban doesn’t actually work in practice. Young people are still easily able to access social media,” he said, echoing reports that more than eight in 10 Australian teenagers are still using social media three months after the ban was enacted.

“The other problem is that the ban is regressive, it fails to recognise that social media platforms are important places for young people to learn, to socialise and to express themselves. 

Hannah Storey, Head of Children and Young People’s Digital Rights at Amnesty International, echoes this sentiment and adds that an under-16s social media ban does not address the harm platforms can inflict on adults too.

“Bans rely on age verification measures, which raise significant privacy concerns, while doing nothing to address the underlying design choices that make many platforms addictive and amplify harmful content,” she told the ABC.

“Children who get around bans, and adults who remain on the platforms, will continue to face the same risks.

“We should use the momentum behind this issue to focus on making platforms safe by design for all users, rather than restricting who can access them.”

NZ government divided on proposed ban

New Zealand’s proposed law has been vehemently opposed by the other two parties that make up the government along with Mr Luxon’s centre-right group National — libertarian ACT and populist NZ First.

Both minor parties repeated on Monday their plans to vote against the law. 

Politicians from the largest opposition party, centre-left Labour, have not decided if they would vote for it, leader Chris Hipkins said.

However, there would not be enough time for politicians to hold a vote on the proposal before New Zealand’s parliament dissolves on October 1 ahead of November’s general election, Mr Luxon said. 

Bills in New Zealand are required to pass three rounds of voting, usually over a period of months, before they become law.

ABC/Wires