New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Monday 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.

Story continues below this ad

“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.”

Labour, New Zealand’s main opposition party, said on Tuesday it would support a ban on social media for under-16s, removing a major obstacle for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon after his coalition partners said they would block the legislation. Luxon on Monday said the proposed laws ⁠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. Platforms ​could ​face fines of up to 10% ⁠of global revenue for non-compliance.

“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.

In December, ‌Australia became the world’s first country to ban social media for children under 16, blocking them from platforms including ‌TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube ​and Meta’s Instagram ​and Facebook.

Story continues below this ad

That ​legislation had been a “colossal failure,” Peters said, adding that keeping children off social media should ​be the responsibility of parents.

“I won’t pretend that ⁠it will be simple or that it will be perfect,” Luxon said at an event.

“We won’t get every single child off ‌social media. ⁠Some will always find ways around it, but frankly, it’s just way too important not to at ​least try.”