The Ban: New Zealand’s proposed under-16 social media ban
Two bills, one idea: keep under-16s off social media. The Social Media (Age-Restricted Users) Bill — a member’s bill from National MP Catherine Wedd, announced 6 May 2025 — was drawn from the ballot in October 2025 but has never had a first reading. It was put on hold in May 2026 while Education Minister Erica Stanford drafts a broader government bill, which PM Christopher Luxon says will be introduced before the 7 November 2026 election — in practice, before Parliament dissolves on 1 October: “we’re gonna die trying to do something.”
What the Wedd bill would actually do
- Platforms decide nothing; the Minister does. No platforms are named in the bill — the Minister designates which services are “age-restricted” by regulation, later.
- “Reasonable verification measures” are required, balancing reliability against user privacy. The bill doesn’t say how age would be proven.
- Only platforms are punished. Children and parents face no penalties for getting around it.
- Six months after Royal Assent to commencement; a review of effectiveness after three years.
An early Cabinet paper from Stanford was withdrawn before being agreed amid the VPN and digital-ID row (File 05). ACT calls the ban “hasty and unworkable”, NZ First says it won’t support the legislation’s progression, and the Greens oppose it — so passing it depends on Labour’s votes — and Stanford has confirmed the outreach: “I have met with Labour MPs on a number of occasions alongside my officials. If ever there was an issue to set aside politics, it’s this one.” The drafting continues at the Parliamentary Counsel Office anyway. That arithmetic is this page’s colour scheme: purple is National blue and Labour red landing on the same side of a single vote.
The biscuit-tin lottery
This bill got its moment by luck. Members’ bills are drawn from a literal biscuit tin — numbered tokens, drawn at midday whenever fewer than eight members’ bills await a first reading. Half of mid-term draws come out inside about four months, but bills drawn near the end of a term had waited a median of two years — and with roughly 90 bills in the tin and about 18 drawn a year, a bill lodged today can expect to wait 4–5 years: longer than the parliamentary term. Most are never drawn at all. Wedd’s came out in 170 days.
Sources: Parliamentary Practice in NZ, ch. 36 · Parliamentary Library, “Members’ bills” · RNZ — politics in the biscuit tin, 23 May 2026 · RNZ — the path of members’ bills, 1 Jun 2025
How We Got Here: timeline of NZ’s social media ban, 2025–2026
Fourteen months from a backbench bill to a constitutional argument about VPNs and digital ID.
Catherine Wedd announces the Social Media (Age-Restricted Users) Bill. Luxon backs it: “It’s not a political issue. It’s actually a New Zealand issue.”
ACT leader David Seymour calls the ban “hasty and unworkable” and demands a select committee inquiry instead. ACT blocks the government-bill route.
RNZ–Reid Research poll: 57.8% of adults support the ban. The Privacy Commissioner warns that all users would have to verify their age.
The bill is drawn from the members’ ballot. Meta and TikTok urge MPs to avoid a “blunt” ban. Labour’s Chris Hipkins pledges first-reading support.
Luxon “deeply supportive”; a government bill is promised for 2026. Erica Stanford is tasked with studying Australia’s ban.
Australia’s world-first under-16 ban takes effect. The same day, NZ’s select committee interim report backs an under-16 ban and a single online-safety regulator. ACT dissents.
The election is set for 7 November 2026. The bill’s working deadline is earlier: the House rises 24 September and Parliament dissolves on 1 October.
The committee’s final report recommends restricting social media to 16+, platform liability, and algorithm transparency — and flags VPN evasion as “an area for further exploration by the regulator.”
DIA advertises a $163k–$182k “Programme Implementation Director” for the ban — before any law exists. The ad is pulled within two days and called an error.
Budget 2026 allocates $30.7m to DIA for the regime. Stanford confirms Wedd’s bill is “on hold” for a wider government bill — and, asked on TVNZ’s Q+A whether universal age verification would be in it, says: “We are going to have to have age verification.”
A Free Speech Union OIA response shows DIA held no legal advice on the regime’s consistency with the Bill of Rights Act’s freedom-of-expression guarantee.
The UK announces its own under-16 ban — Stanford calls the global restriction movement a “tsunami”.
Luxon: legislation is being drafted “right now” at the Parliamentary Counsel Office; it will be introduced before the election. “We’re gonna die trying to do something.”
The Post reports the Government looked at a VPN ban or restrictions as part of the work. Within hours: Luxon — “I can reject that outright. There’s no plan to ban VPNs at all.”
NZ First — which says the early paper’s “ambiguity” opened the door to VPN limits and digital ID — won’t support the legislation’s progression. ACT vows to block any VPN ban. Stuff reports National, having failed to convince its coalition partners, has gone to Labour to get the bill across the line.
Stanford confirms the Labour outreach to the NZ Herald: “I have met with Labour MPs on a number of occasions alongside my officials. If ever there was an issue to set aside politics, it’s this one.” Labour’s caucus is “yet to fully discuss the new bill”.
The Australian Experiment: results of Australia’s under-16 social media ban
NZ’s ban is modelled on Australia’s, in force since 10 December 2025. Roughly 4.7 million under-16 accounts were deactivated or restricted. Then the follow-up data arrived: most of the kids never left.
How they got back in
Mostly not with VPNs. On each platform, only about 1 in 20 of the kids still using it did so via VPN — the rest had accounts platforms simply never removed, lied about their age, or used a parent’s login. 70% of circumventors said getting around the ban was “easy”.
Side by side
| Australia | New Zealand (proposed) | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | In force since 10 Dec 2025 | Not law. Member’s bill frozen; government bill being drafted |
| Age | Under 16 | Under 16 |
| Max penalty | A$49.5m — draft law announced June 2026 to double it to A$99m as teens outsmarted the ban | NZ$2m (Wedd bill; government bill unknown) |
| Platforms | 10 currently assessed by eSafety: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, Kick, Reddit — a rules-based list the government can redraw | None named — the Minister designates them later by regulation |
| Enforcer | eSafety Commissioner (considering court action against Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube) | Undecided — DIA receives the funding; committee wants a new regulator |
| Kids / parents punished | No | No |
| Reported harm reduction | eSafety’s complaints data showed no “discernible drop” in children reporting harm (Mar 2026) | — |
Who decides what counts as “social media”?
Not parliament — the executive. Australia’s Act never lists platforms: it defines an “age-restricted social media platform” and lets ministerial rules move the boundary, with eSafety assessing who’s in. Ten platforms are currently in; Discord, Roblox, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Messenger, Steam, YouTube Kids, Google Classroom and LEGO Play are explicitly out; others — Bluesky, Tinder and Hinge, Yubo, Wizz, Lemon8 — have self-notified as covered. A March 2026 amendment quietly added a new condition to the rules: the list can change without a new act of parliament. NZ’s Wedd bill copies the design — no platforms named, the Minister designates them later.
The boundary matters because kids go wherever it isn’t. Within weeks of the ban, ByteDance’s Lemon8 — Chinese-owned, and not on the restricted list — climbed to the top of Australia’s app-download charts, alongside surges for Chinese platform RedNote (Xiaohongshu) and smaller apps like Yope and Coverstar. eSafety’s response was to write to ByteDance recommending it self-assess — and Lemon8 now sits among the self-notified platforms. Ban ten doors, and the queue moves to the eleventh.
Sources: eSafety — which platforms are age-restricted · SmartCompany — Lemon8 surges up the charts · eSafety guide — Lemon8 · Amendment Rules 2026 (F2026L00370) · NPR, 29 Jun 2026 · Euronews, 29 Jun 2026 · Simpson Grierson legal analysis
The ID Check: age verification for every New Zealander, not just under-16s
Here is the part that isn’t about teenagers. A platform can’t know who’s under 16 without checking everyone. The Privacy Commissioner said it plainly in June 2025: “to ensure under 16-year-olds are not accessing social media, all users over 16 will be required to verify their age.”
On TVNZ’s Q+A (17 May 2026), Jack Tame asked Education Minister Erica Stanford: “Will universal age verification still be part of that bill?” Her answer: “We are going to have to have age verification.” — watch the exchange from 18:06. The Free Speech Union read that as confirmation — “universal age verification is coming to New Zealand” — with chief executive Jillaine Heather adding: “the Minister told parents on Sunday that universal age verification is coming, but she will not tell anyone how it will work, who will run it, or what it will cost the privacy and free speech of every adult New Zealander.” By then DIA was already recruiting an implementation director, with procurement underway.
The verification trilemma
Economist Eric Crampton (NZ Initiative) summarises the engineering problem: any age-check system fails in at least one of three ways.
“Under-age users will evade the system; over-age users will face burdensome verification; or privacy and pseudonymity will be compromised.” — Eric Crampton, NZ Initiative, Oct 2025
Ask the follow-up question, watch support move
Sources: Privacy Commissioner via Biometric Update, Jun 2025 · FSU — “Universal age verification confirmed”, 18 May 2026 · FSU / Curia, Nov 2025 · FSU OIA release, Jun 2026 · David Harvey, LawNews, May 2026
The VPN Question: New Zealand’s VPN ban scare, reported and denied
On the morning of 7 July 2026, The Post reported — citing multiple sources — that the Government had looked at banning or restricting VPNs to stop kids dodging the ban. The idea was publicly dead by nightfall. What exactly happened is still disputed.
The Post (Henry Cooke, 7 Jul): the Government looked at a VPN ban or restrictions, per “multiple sources with knowledge of the work”. The story has not been retracted.
Luxon (7 Jul): “I can reject that outright. There’s no plan to ban VPNs at all.” Stanford: not “restricting or banning VPNs”; she “never sought or received” advice on it.
NZ First says Stanford’s early Cabinet paper contained enough “ambiguity” that it “could have led to” VPN limits and digital IDs — contradicting “never considered”. ACT’s Seymour went further that morning: “National MPs were keen on a VPN ban at select committee.” The paper was withdrawn.
‘Oppressive’: Government looks at VPN ban or restrictions as part of under-16 social media ban. The FSU reacts before 8am:
A VPN ban gives the game away.
National MPs were keen on a VPN ban at select committee; Stanford’s office emails The Post: the Government is
not looking at restricting or banning VPNs. Luxon:
I can reject that outright. There’s no plan to ban VPNs at all.Greens call the idea “misguided” and technologically impossible. National MP Joseph Mooney:
Free speech is a crucial cornerstone of democracy.
Why the idea keeps coming back: age checks create VPN booms
Everywhere age verification lands, VPN sign-ups explode — which is exactly what tempts governments to look at the tools next.
Vendor-reported figures; metrics differ (sign-ups, purchases, installs). Sources: UKTN · NBC News · Decrypt
Where other democracies stand on VPNs
Closest to acting. The Lords voted 207–159 to bar VPN providers from serving children; the Commons rejected that 321–106 but enacted a power to restrict children’s access to “specified internet services”. A consultation on age-checking VPN access closed in May. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall promised “further statements in July about VPNs and further restrictions” — still unmade as of 9 July — and Spiked reports the incoming Burnham camp backs the crackdown.
Floated, then denied. A European Parliament research briefing calls VPN circumvention “a regulatory gap that needs to be closed” and floats age checks for VPN users. Commissioner Henna Virkkunen: “VPN must not allow the system to be circumvented” — later clarifying the aim is “not to prohibit VPNs”, with the Commission insisting there is “absolutely no crackdown on VPNs”. An expert panel on an EU-wide digital age limit reports 13 July.
The platforms’ problem. Seven months into its ban, no user-side VPN restriction has been proposed: eSafety’s guidance makes VPN detection the platforms’ job, and Communications Minister Anika Wells blames “Big Tech taking the Mickey” — not VPN users. The escalation of choice is doubled fines (A$99m, currently stalled in a Senate inquiry), not tool bans.
Ban proposed, VPNs untouched. Bill C-34 (June 2026) would ban under-16s from social media with mandated age checks — “We’re failing our children. Enough is enough,” says Minister Marc Miller — but no one in government has raised VPN limits. The critics’ warning is instead the familiar one: the ban “functionally requires age-checking the entire population”.
Sources: ISPreview — Lords vote, Jan 2026 · gov.uk fact sheet · City AM, 8 Jul 2026 · Spiked, 7 Jul 2026 · Euronews fact-check, 15 May 2026 · Canada — Safe Social Media Act · Michael Geist on C-34 · eSafety regulatory guidance (PDF)
The comparison every opponent reached for. National MP Joseph Mooney: New Zealand should never consider joining the list of countries that ban VPNs - such as North Korea, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Iraq and Iran - nor the countries that only allow state-approved VPN’s such as China and Russia. Free speech is a crucial cornerstone of democracy.
ACT’s release put it the same way: these countries “use these restrictions to suppress their citizens’ free speech, often in the name of protecting from online harm.” And the Australian data (File 03) suggests a VPN ban wouldn’t even fix the problem: only ~5% of circumventing kids used one.
Sources: Mooney on X, 7 Jul 2026 · ACT, 8 Jul 2026 · 1News, 7 Jul 2026 · The Post (paywalled) · NZ Herald (paywalled)
The Pushback: Free Speech Union, Privacy Commissioner and civil liberties opposition
The opposition isn’t one lobby. It runs from the Free Speech Union to the Privacy Commissioner, the Children’s Commissioner, UNICEF, Netsafe, InternetNZ and the NZ Council for Civil Liberties — for different reasons: surveillance, rights, and the evidence that bans don’t work.
A VPN ban would be the most significant expansion of state control over online speech and digital freedom in New Zealand’s history… Free societies do not ban the tools that make free communication possible.“A VPN ban gives the game away”, 7 Jul 2026 — the FSU also warns: “That is not child protection, it is censorship infrastructure.”
This is not just about those who are under 16 years old — we’ll all have to provide verification if we want to speak freely online. Censorship will be applied through compliance.FSU, 24 Oct 2025
The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act guarantees us the right to freedom of expression… the bill is unreasonable in principle and unworkable in practice.NZCCL, 6 May 2025 — verification means identity documents going to foreign platforms.
A blanket ban for our children and young people may also result in them seeking workarounds.Jun 2025 — privacy issues “need to be fully understood and worked through” before any proposal advances.
Not in favour of broad-brush approaches like age assurance and age-based bans.Jul 2025 — no technical consensus exists for accurate, privacy-preserving age verification.
A ban would just push any problems underground… a lot of young people rely on their social media spaces to get support.RNZ, Sep 2024
Children and young people are experts in their own lives, and they have a right to be involved in decisions that affect them.RNZ, 11 Jun 2026 — a blanket ban is “too blunt” and may harm marginalised youth.
Aotearoa does not need to lock children out of their online world; it needs to make their online world safer.NZ Herald op-ed, 2026
Most of the young people that I’ve spoken to are unconcerned with this ban because they use VPNs on a daily basis.RNZ, Aug 2025 — “To date, there’s no effective technology that verifies age or parental consent.”
A clear majority of New Zealand adults support it (57.8%, RNZ–Reid). Advocacy group B416 (co-founded by Anna Mowbray) has campaigned hard for it; Family First welcomed the bill; Luxon frames it as “not a political issue… actually a New Zealand issue”, citing parents’ struggles with bullying, addiction and harmful content. Australia’s government insists its law is working as accountability pressure on platforms: “That isn’t the law failing… that is big tech taking the piss” — Communications Minister Anika Wells, Mar 2026.
Where The Parties Stand: New Zealand party positions on the under-16 social media ban
Six parties, one bill — and National can’t pass it with its coalition’s votes. As of 10 July 2026: ACT and NZ First won’t back it, the Greens oppose it, so National needs Labour’s support to pass the legislation — and Stanford is openly courting it.
Authored both bills: Wedd’s member’s bill and the government bill now being drafted. Luxon (29 Jun 2026): “we’re gonna die trying to do something.” Now seeking Labour’s votes after its coalition partners walked.
Hipkins pledged support at the Wedd bill’s first reading (Oct 2025) and wants an “overhaul” rather than a veto. With ACT and NZ First out, the legislation lives or dies on Labour’s 34 votes — and its caucus is “yet to fully discuss the new bill” (tech spokesman Reuben Davidson, 9 Jul 2026).
“Hasty and unworkable” — Seymour, May 2025. Blocked National from making it a government bill, dissented from the select committee report, and vows to stop any VPN ban.
“Understands and agrees with the intent” — but “would not be supporting the progression of this legislation”, citing VPN and digital-ID ambiguity in the early Cabinet paper (7 Jul 2026).
Say a ban is circumventable, isolates at-risk youth and pushes them into “less transparent corners”; called VPN restrictions “misguided” (7 Jul 2026).
We found no clear public stance from the party on the bill as of 9 July 2026.