Social media ban may push children to more harmful sites, says an expert

National’s proposed social-media-ban for under-16-year-olds may push children onto more harmful websites, says a tech expert.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced a bill which would ban under-16-year-olds from accessing social media sites, following a similar law being passed in Australia last November.

Technology columnist Peter Griffin says the ban will struggle to define which websites should and shouldn’t be affected by the ban, with both ends of the scale leading to bad consequences.

“If they go too far and wide, that has really negative consequences for kids from an educational and social point of view.

"If they're too narrow, it will push kids to other platforms that are not designated.

He also says that this may result in a rise in new social media websites “as site owners and app makers try to get around those restrictions”.

National MP Catherine Wedd, who’s introducing the bill to parliament, says the ban will emulate the law passed in Australia, which does not affect messaging and gaming sites or websites like YouTube.

Griffin says that the Australian law not making an exception for parental consent is worrying for New Zealand and that parents should make that decision themselves “in consultation with their kids”.

“What would be more effective is the cell phone ban in schools [...] in combination with parents taking a more proactive role in being engaged with their kids' online lives at home.

“I think there’ll be a lot of workarounds [to the ban], I just don’t see it being able to be properly enforced”, says Griffin.

LISTEN: Peter Griffin on how the social media ban may not work as well as parents think.

Entrepreneur and co-chair of the Before 16 lobby group, Cecilia Robinson, said in an interview with Stuff’s Patrick Gower that the dangers of social media need to be treated like alcohol, drink driving, and tobacco.

“There is a public harm here to children who are accessing social media [...] it’s important for us to introduce a minimum age for social media and to actually treat this like other harms in society.

She says the goal with this legislation is to assist parents in dealing with their children’s social media use, rather than taking away their right to enforce it themselves.

“It’s actually really difficult [for parents] to manage this with children today. We need to take a leadership view there as a society to actually support parents to implement this.

Peter Griffin says that the harm caused by social media use by children is undeniable, however a blanket ban on its use is not the way to go.

“[This ban could] kill a lot of the good things that attract them to those platforms. It could isolate them [...] and it could have the unintended consequence of your kids actually ending up in a worse part of the internet.

The Social Media (Age Restricted Users) Bill is currently a members’ bill, not a government bill, and so will now enter what's called the ‘biscuit tin’ at Parliament.

It will only be put before the house and debated if it happens to be pulled out by chance.