New Zealand Moves to Bar Under-16s From Social Media

On Aug. 24, New Zealand’s government introduced legislation to bar children under 16 from social media and to fine platforms up to 10% of their global revenue if they fail to keep them out. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the apps were exposing a generation of children to harmful content and addictive design; two of his coalition partners have already refused to support the bill.

New Zealand’s government on Aug. 24 introduced legislation that would bar children under 16 from holding social-media accounts and expose platforms to fines of up to 10% of their global revenue if they fail to keep young users off their services, The Washington Post reported. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the country could not keep tolerating the toll the platforms were taking on children. “We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children,” Luxon said, according to a statement from the New Zealand government.

What the bill would require

The bill would require platforms the government deems high-risk — among them Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook — to take reasonable steps to check that account holders are over 16, The Washington Post reported. Simply asking users to enter a date of birth would not satisfy that duty; platforms would instead have to rely on measures such as existing account information, facial age estimation, digital identity services and formal identification, according to the government. The rules would apply to services built around features the government considers harmful to children, including recommender systems, endless feeds, feedback tools and time-limited content, the government said. No penalties are proposed for children or their parents.

The harm ministers cite

Luxon framed the measure as a response to what he described as the platforms’ effect on young people’s wellbeing. “Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with and it’s affecting their family life, mental health, sleep and education,” he said, according to the government statement. The government said one in three children aged 13 to 17 now spend at least five hours a day on social media, according to the statement.

A divided coalition

The bill’s path through Parliament is uncertain. Two of Luxon’s coalition partners, the libertarian ACT party and the populist New Zealand First, have said they will not support a ban, meaning his National Party would need backing from the opposition Labour Party, which has not committed, Bloomberg reported. The legislation is unlikely to advance before a general election set for November, The Washington Post reported.

Part of a global wave

New Zealand is following Australia, which in late 2025 became the first country to bar under-16s from social media, Bloomberg reported. Since then, more than two dozen countries have enacted their own age restrictions or are weighing similar measures, according to Bloomberg. The debate turns on a question governments and platforms have struggled to answer: whether companies whose feeds are engineered to hold attention can reliably verify a user’s age, and keep the youngest users away from the content and design that lawmakers say is harming them.