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Many parents in New Zealand worry about social media’s effect on young people. Parents see their children spending hours online, sometimes exposed to bullying, harmful content, or pressure to look or act a certain way. Of course they want answers.
That is why I asked Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee to examine the impact of social media on young people.
The aim was to identify the problem, look at the evidence, and consider what would work in real life. Issues affecting young people need careful, evidence-based responses – not rushed decisions or policies that only look good on paper.
Sadly, the Committee’s final recommendations do not meet that standard. It declined an offer from YouTube to share its experience with age restrictions and did not seek advice from the Department of Internal Affairs on the very question it was set up to examine. These were missed opportunities to understand what actually works.
Instead of clearly setting out harms and practical responses, the report moves towards broad ideas such as banning social media for people under 16. We do not have to guess at the consequences – Australia has already tried a similar approach. The results have not been encouraging. Rather than making young people safer, the ban weakened safety protections already in place.
In practice, an age-based ban would likely require widespread age checks. People may have to prove their age online to use every day digital services, including social media. Adults, not just teenagers, could also be required to verify their age or identity before accessing ordinary online platforms.
That would be a major shift towards an internet where people are routinely asked to hand over sensitive personal information. Those risks are real. Late last year, hackers compromised a contractor handling age-related checks in the United Kingdom, potentially exposing government ID photos from about 70,000 users along with other personal data. That case shows the risks of collecting sensitive identity information at scale.
We should also be realistic about how young people respond to online restrictions. Many would look for ways around them, including by using virtual private networks, or VPNs – software that can make it seem someone is accessing the internet from somewhere else. That creates its own risks, by pushing young people into harder-to-monitor parts of the internet where parents, platforms, and authorities have less visibility and less ability to intervene.
The goal of protecting young people is right. But in a technological world, the answer is not as simple as announcing a ban and hoping it works.
Another troubling recommendation is that a future regulator should consider restricting VPNs. VPNs are widely used by businesses, journalists, and ordinary people to protect privacy and security online, especially on public Wi-Fi. Restricting them would raise serious civil liberties concerns and show how quickly a policy aimed at protecting children can spill over into broader controls on the internet used by everyone.
More generally, the Committee has suggested creating a new national regulator for online harms. But New Zealand already has laws covering online content, privacy, and digital safety. Before creating a powerful new regulator to oversee speech and online behaviour, Parliament should show current laws are not enough. That case has not been made.
Other ideas deserve serious attention. These include teaching young people more about online safety, giving parents better tools to manage their children’s internet use, and making sure harmful behaviour such as harassment or exploitation is properly dealt with.
Technology is not going away. Young people will keep growing up in a digital world. Our job is to give them the skills and protections they need to use it safely.
Parliament should take the time to get this right. Social media’s impact on young people is serious. It needs a serious, evidence-based response – not poorly thought-out policy that could weaken privacy and freedom for everyone.
-Dr Parmjeet Parmar, ACT Party MP