New Zealand to introduce bill banning social media pn youth

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said his party will introduce a bill in Parliament that seeks to ban children under 16 from using social media, proposing fines of up to 10% of a platform's global revenue for non-compliance.



The bill would require social media platforms to take reasonable steps to verify users' ages, including by utilising existing account information, facial technology and digital identity documents.



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



"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."



It was not immediately clear if the bill would garner sufficient support to pass through Parliament, with one of Luxon's coalition partners, the New Zealand First party, saying it would not support it.



"We have been concerned with the proposed legislation and the direction and slippery slope that legislation like this will inevitably take our country," New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who is also the country's foreign minister, said in a post on X.