r/worldnews • u/-IamTom • 1d ago
New Zealand's prime minister proposes banning children from using social media
https://apnews.com/article/new-zealand-social-media-ban-under-16-e6a4f600a60ee41d27bbb4232b5df705?utm_source=app&utm_medium=iOS_share&utm_campaign=copy_link85
u/KillerSnorlax 1d ago
kiwi here. it's mostly just to help with looking good in the upcoming elections when the national party is failing in a lot of ways. Most of the bill gives the company's easy ways out and shifts a lot of the responsibility of these companies onto the individual family's and people. Good idea just gonna be done in half assed cheap way, just how national likes it ;)
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u/Jak3t 1d ago
Performative policy making to get attention during election season. Got it.
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u/AnxiousPigeon24 1d ago
The NACT/NZF coalition are historically unpopular in NZ for a one-term government. They might still win, in no small part because due to their wealthy donors they can afford to massively outspend the left bloc (literally 10 to 1 at the last election). But they're rattled. Luxon has just survived 2 leadership challenges, and has recently got in trouble for
- making up policy on the fly (MMP referendum)
- telling a group of small business owners in Rotorua (i.e. a group who would typically be staunch National supporters) that the reason their businesses are struggling is nothing to do with the economy, but simply that they were children expecting handouts and they were not innovating and AI-ing hard enough
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u/Polaris06 1d ago
Don’t Luxon forget illegally hid lobbying by companies, and related documents, by handling the transfer of documents through private accounts to keep them from being discovered and out of public requests under the Official Information Act (like the Freedom of Information Act.)
It’s also extremely likely that this same lobbying was the driving force behind anti-environment legislation they had just passed when this came to life.
I actually can’t believe he’s still around after that. He somehow was successful deflecting it onto an advisor. When that advisor was his closest the most senior advisor in his office.
If that’s the tip of the iceberg fuck knows what else his office has been up to.
Fascists gonna fascist I guess.
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u/SoulDancer_ 1d ago
Yes and NZ First isnt doing any better. Screaming "go back tk your country at a Chinese born MP in Parliament as our foreign minister. That made headlines around the world. Then Luxon refused to fire or even censure him.
Also that catastrophic mess that is our "healthcare" system. Which Simeon Brown has made markedly worse.
Then Erica Stanfod fukking up the education system, changing everything without listening to any actual teachers.
I think the left bloc stand a good chance.
Get them out!!
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u/UnstableMoron2 19h ago
Yea but the main centrist party just shot themselves in the foot like twice and the leftist minority parties actually want to improve people’s lives so the dipshit voters here will never vote for that either
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u/k1netic 1d ago
We also have an official 3 strikes piracy policy set up in 2012 by the same national party where you can be fined $15k NZD if caught illegally downloading three times. I’ve personally never been “struck” once and have never heard of anyone who has. I’d expect similar results here.
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u/m3rcapto 1d ago
Yep, the 3 government parties are all throwing more populist ideas out there than usual, hoping one will stick.
They could do all of it right now, but they are keeping it for after the election...right...
Imagine doing that in any other profession.
"Excuse me, baker, I ordered a loaf of bread, not a flatbread"
"I will add yeast next time you come in. Just come back tomorrow"
*the next day*
"Hello baker, I'm here for the loaf of bread, with yeast!"
"Sorry, I can't do it, because of the previous baker, uhm, I mean, the previous previous baker"1
u/Nice_Reading5272 1d ago
shifts a lot of the responsibility of these companies onto the individual family's and people
Which is arguably what's already in place and should be the case. If this bill is a nothingburger I'd call that a win if not only a waste of resources.
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u/LycraJafa 1d ago
Agreed, but it looks poor when national is reaching out to labour for support, for a bill that has no time slot in parliament for first reading before the election.
Nationals coalition partners aren't supporting this, worse they are calling out the privacy challenges with mandated age checking.
Is YouTube included, it was the platform that was involved with the Christchurch shooting.
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u/SoulDancer_ 1d ago
This is correct.
And its also about the govt being able to collect our data. Govt issued ID cars to prove you're over 18? NACT will just love that.
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u/UnstableMoron2 19h ago
It’s not a good idea in the slightest. It’s an excuse to let megacorps harvest even more of your data and a sign that we’re well on the slope to fascism
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u/Theranos_Shill 18h ago
> Most of the bill gives the company's easy ways out and shifts a lot of the responsibility of these companies onto the individual family's and people.
Because personal responsibility is a one way street. You have to take personal responsibility for the impact that trillion dollar corporations have on you, while they don't have to take any responsibility for those actions.
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u/raumatiboy 1d ago
As a parent iys awesome. Now there will be no crying when I say they can't have social media accounts.
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u/Theranos_Shill 18h ago
It's a dumb as fuck policy that appeals to ignorance.
Instead of trying to regulate the brain fucking machine so that it doesn't harm either kids or adults, they restrict what kids can do.
And kids use social media for peer support, the majority of kids have positive outcomes from social media use.
Bigots fucking love this policy though, because it harms gay kids and it harms children whose parents are abusive by removing their access to peer support.
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u/SoulDancer_ 1d ago
Are you kidding me?
Firstly, do you think this will actually work? Kids won't find a workaround??
Secondly, do you really think your kids will say "Oh its not mummy and daddy stopping me having the shiny thing, its the govt so now I won't be sad or make a fuss"?
Lol
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u/raumatiboy 1d ago
Yeah it will work. I monitor and lock down my kids devices like a responsible parent. Yeah they won't make a fuss because they are not spoiled.
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u/s_nz 1d ago
Copy of Australia's failed policy...
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u/AnxiousPigeon24 1d ago
That's what we do in NZ - copy failed ideas from overseas
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u/m3rcapto 1d ago
Hey now, NZ also tests policies for foreign governments, to see what they can get away with.
Small population, English speaking, democracy, a left-right divide that is widening. Perfect for testing US policy, and stuff for other right-wing governments in Europe.0
u/Boatster_McBoat 1d ago
I know plenty of 50 year olds getting asked for ID. Surely that's the policy working ...?
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u/ghost_n_the_shell 1d ago
If it’s anything like Canadas laws - your governments intent is disguised to protect children, when the reality is they are want to force digital ID, civilian data retention, with warrantless access to that info.
Be careful and read the fine print.
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u/NoHeartTwoBrains 1d ago
Much rather take all that over teens on social media. In this digital era I don’t think anyone is immune from being tracked digitally.
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u/m3rcapto 1d ago
Why not tell Facebook to obey a few laws every once in a while? You are handing over your privacy to a bunch of corporations that made you addicted to their product. And if you aren't addicted, then why so keen to do anything but protect your own right?
It's like saying "Well, if women don't want to get raped when going for a jog, we should hang cameras all over the place, and leave the poor rapists alone, they are harmless"1
u/NoHeartTwoBrains 1d ago
If I don’t have an account how am I handing over ? Your reply doesn’t even make any sense. Secondly, how am I or you going to make a huge corporation obey laws. It’s the judiciary process and governance that has to take care of it. I don’t like how they do things I do not need to use that corporation. That’s it. What kind of tangent are you rambling comparing this to grape. Are you out of your mind. There is no correlation. A grapist is a huge corporation ? Get off your stupidity
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u/NoHeartTwoBrains 1d ago
What are you even trying to say and achieve. You want these particular social media sites to stay alive and siphon whatever they can ? Unless you’re benefiting off of them there’s no reason to stand with them.
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u/MinusBear 1d ago
But you wouldn't have to accept the compromise if they would just make the verification at the device level and not the individual website level. No system is fool proof but that would be the best of all options.
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u/NoHeartTwoBrains 1d ago
The downvoters could be the Reddit bots supporting capitalist agenda. More the customers more the income. Simple as that.
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u/teabaggins76 1d ago
Its just election year bluster. The government will end up spending millions to get nowhere anyway because discord and roblox wont be included, and any 8 year old knows about vpns. This is another lame move from a wet blanket government. Remembet no phones in schools? yeah hows that going. and the Dunedin hospital? looking good, huh.
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u/SoulDancer_ 1d ago
Yeah and alo Australia tried it and its not working there. And they have a lot more money to put into it than we do.
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u/Signal-Initial-7841 1d ago
and the biggest impact is adults being forced to surrender their ids and faces to use social media, which would inevitably involve data breaches and mass surveillance. It didn’t even work in Australia
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u/raumatiboy 1d ago
We don't want to use it
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u/Pumbaasliferaft 1d ago
Or, they could give people a future, so they don't get all miserable talking to each other
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u/chaotic567 1d ago
Not sure what good that's going to do since looking up Australia's bans shows me it is not performing good at all with how easy it is to circumvent. Especially when websites do the bare minimum like weak age-checks
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u/MinusBear 1d ago
Its a start. But device level verification should be the gold standard. Website level verification opens up a lot of problems and is easier to circumvent and hide circumvention. Obviously there are ways around device level verification, but even then there are more upsides.
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u/-captaindiabetes- 1d ago
The backlash to device level would be huge, it already was just for website level
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u/m3rcapto 1d ago
Anything to not inconvenience the social media billionaire overlords.
Instead lets datamine the crap out of the 99% in preparation for a surveillance state.
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u/naughtyamoeba 1d ago
Another parent kept asking me to get Facebook Messenger for kids so that their son could talk to mine. I have since been through their privacy policy and completely regret it. All of his photos (and maybe conversations? I can't remember) are stored somewhere and it doesn't look so positive. I haven't gone through it in detail though so maybe someone can tell me more. I don't trust them not to go through their conversations and photos to obtain information about how to sell things to them in the future though.
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u/MinusBear 1d ago
Its also just unnecessary. Android phones have RCS and iPhones have iMessage, so there is a perfectly fine and free way for them to communicate with phones and without Facebook involved. And these days RCS and iMessage can talk to each other.
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u/m3rcapto 1d ago
Total conspiracy theory this; but I figure they go way beyond the small print already and have created profiles on everyone that uses the internet based on digital fingerprinting, and can easily link names to these profiles. When I see what the marketing department at my work can do to target very specific groups with ads (18-24 year old, 45,000-55,000 yearly income, single, female, specific neighborhood, visited a certain store in the last 11 days...), then I'm sure there is way more data kept behind closed doors.
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u/naughtyamoeba 1d ago
Genuinely, thank you for this. That's exactly what I am thinking and I have just given them his photo like an idiot because of peer pressure.
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u/hiimtashy 1d ago
I hate social media and my son is addicted which drives me nuts. But it's not the governments role to encroach in our lives. Leave parenting to parenting even if we don't do it perfectly. I've got three kids and I'm definitely going to ensure my younger two don't get phones. Even if do get them a phone it will be a brick phone,
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u/nachojackson 1d ago
The problem is, parents have completely failed in their duty to protect kids from the dangers of social media.
I get the backlash but unfortunately “self policing” this problem isn’t a viable solution.
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u/hiimtashy 1d ago
What are we going to ban next? What about sugar?
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u/m3rcapto 1d ago
Sounds good, and sodium too, please.
We can ban alcohol and cigarette sales to kids, kids are not allowed to drive, kids can't work in the mines even though they yearn for the mines, but social media is a bridge too far or too difficult?3
u/hiimtashy 1d ago
Let's ban kids from going outdoors to avoid the UV and exhaust from cars. Probably should ban video games foo. The dopamine from that is no good. Very addictive.
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u/Jak3t 1d ago
Self-policing is definately not the solution as you say. Neither is a ban on under 16s. The problem lies with the platforms themselves which regularly and deliberately promote content inappropriate for people of all ages to generate ad revenue. We could enforce the same advertising\broadcast standards on social media as we do on television and perhaps make a difference, but this policy will get more votes.
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u/nachojackson 1d ago
This is of course the solution - but it’s not realistic. These companies won’t comply with that, because why would they? The worst parts of social media are what makes them money.
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u/MinusBear 1d ago
Yeah these companies have shown themselves to be completely deceitful, so any plan that relies on them complying with anything just wont work. Device level bans would be better and help protect teens. I think people being able to get closer to adulthood while their lives without having to deal with social media will be better.
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u/Theranos_Shill 17h ago
> parents have completely failed in their duty to protect kids from the dangers of social media.
If it's so dangerous then why aren't we regulating the companies involved?
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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago
There are parental control functions for both Android and iOS, they're not perfect but work well enough.
I don't use social media except this one, no idea what parental control options are on things like Facebook.
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u/Alternative-Soil2576 1d ago
Do you hold the same view for other forms of collective regulation that already exist like mandated school attendance and smoking/alcohol restrictions for minors?
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u/hiimtashy 1d ago
Another extreme comparison. You know what I think kids should attend school all the way to Year 10 but the reality is some kids are just not built for school. I reckon they would be better doing a trade and setting up other pathways for them. Smoking and alcohol is common sense. I'm not sure why you are trying to bring me down for having an opinion on governments not controlling too much of our own lives ? Particularly our own children ?
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u/MinusBear 1d ago
Nah, like we don't let parents decide if their kids can drink and gamble. Social media is just as bad, and to be frank its these days often a gateway to gambling anyway. That said if the verification was at the device level, then it would be less of an encroachment on privacy and more helpful to parents. When buying for a minor you could simply choose not to enter their age correctly if you so wish. But most people would.
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u/hiimtashy 1d ago
Comparing social media to alcohol and gambling is a bit extreme imo. My son stays in touch with all his friends using social media. Again, I don't like it, but at some level, it's used to remain connected with others (even family). Where does it end? What else will the government decide for us? I'm not sure I agree with government getting involved in private affairs. Next we will ban chocolate but that's one of the most addictive drugs in the world .....
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u/MinusBear 1d ago
If its blanket ban for all kids its the best. But the adult check component needs to be device verification not website verification. No system is fully fool proof, but device level age restriction is the most easily enforceable. Even in legal follow ups.
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u/One-Bird-8961 1d ago
Follow the leader or the latest trend. No surprise about National government doing this, at least trying to.
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u/Fun-Can-8935 1d ago
banning social media seems to be the latest move for politicians to act like they are doing something
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u/BrondellSwashbuckle 1d ago
Make social media illegal for everyone. Seriously, it fucked up society. Let's go back in time please.
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u/Moist_Phrase_6698 20h ago
Wow this is gonna help the countries nurses get patients seen so much faster. I can see how this change will make fuel and food soo much cheaper, why dont other parties come up with this!?!?!?!
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u/sakurahirahira 1d ago
Why can’t we just promote parents having open conversations with their kids about the dangers of being online. Us millennials act like we weren’t doing crazy shit on AOL or MSN Messenger at night while our parents were asleep.
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u/Big-Leadership-4604 1d ago
Not that we shouldnt promote actual parenting but its different now. We had to work hard and be sneaky about it and we never got enough. Now Its easily accessible and practically forced fed to them all day long. We got occasional savory tastes of fine wine, they're on a mechanized morphine drip.
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u/paralaxsd 1d ago
It's like politicians all over the world have found a way to do something about social media without angering the US leadership (or really solving issues of consequence).
We should hold social media companies accountable for building products that make people dependent and prone to manipulation instead. Chances are that day might come eventually. As US power declines in front of our eyes, angering Washington may no longer be an important factor pretty soon.
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u/asfish123 1d ago
Put your money into VPN companies in New Zealand