There are complications: When the Herald attended a safety event for Year 7 and 8s at Epsom’s Kohia Terrace School, many students had hand-me-down phones. And the app stores’ parental controls are opt-in (in the absence of legislation).

But Davis says an age verification measure, involving parents, that covers all apps, at the phone or app store level, is the measure that should be pursued.

Uptake of Meta’s parental control tools for its Teen Accounts would increase.

“It also gives us an opportunity to give you [the parents] the parental tools directly. So we’re pushing for this type of legislation. We think it’s a really good solution for parents,” Davis said.

Decisions already made

But if Davis wanted her message to resonate with our lawmakers, she might have been too late.

In December, the Education and Workforce committee released its Inquiry into the harm young New Zealanders encounter online report.

It recommended the Government consider 12 steps, including “restricting access to social media platforms for under 16-year-olds” and “introducing a national regulator for online safety”.

Asked about progress toward new online safety measures, including a possible under-16 ban, Education Minister Erica Stanford told the Herald: “Cabinet has recently taken decisions on a first set of proposals and an announcement will be made in the next [few] weeks.”

Davis did not have any ministerial or departmental meetings on her agenda for her whirlwind 48-hour visit, although Meta did earlier make a select committee submission.

On May 6 last year, National backbencher Catherine Wedd put forward a private member’s bill for an under-16 social media ban.

On May 11, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said although Wedd’s bill would stay in the ballot (meaning it could be selected from the “biscuit tin” of private bills), the potential measure would now become part of his Government’s programme of work – implying legislation or regulation that could supersede Wedd’s bill.

“The overwhelmingly positive response from mums and dads makes it clear we need to progress options to restrict social media for under-16s and as such, I have tasked Erica Stanford to lead this work,” Luxon said at the time.

“I am concerned by the harm social media can cause young New Zealanders and I believe restricting access for under-16s would help protect our kids from bullying, harmful content and social media addiction.”

The Government has said it will implement its plan – the first parts of which have now been decided – in two phases, the first of which will be introduced before the election.

Are Australian under-16s being blocked?

While Cabinet has already made decisions on its first set of measures, Meta and its peers can still hold out hope that an under-16 ban won’t be included until the second phase of reform – and that by that time, Australia’s experiment will have fallen on its face.

As things stand, it’s too early to tell.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, responsible for implementing the ban, said on January 16 that platforms had restricted access to 4.7 million under-16 accounts across the 10 age-restricted services, which are:

Meta also gave a mid-January update. Australia-New Zealand regional policy director Mia Garlick said: “We removed access to almost 550,000 accounts belonging to people we understand to be under 16 years old across our platforms. This breakdown includes: Instagram (330,639), Facebook (173,497), and Threads (39,916).”

Those are heavy-duty numbers.

For context, the Australian Bureau of Statistics says there are 5.25 million in the country under 16, including 1.88 million between 10 and 15 and one million between 13 and 15 (13 was previously Facebook’s minimum age).

Yet between the lack of figures on double-ups (most teens would hold accounts with multiple services, inflating the eSafety Commissioner’s 4.7 million headline figure), and the fact none of the platforms have offered pre-ban under-16 numbers, it is hard to say what percentage of under-16s using social media have been blocked.

Davis said Meta was working with a third party, Yoti, on age-verification analysis of stills and videos provided by an account holder.

Australia’s legislation prohibits the use of Government ID such as a passport for privacy reasons.

There’s also artificial intelligence-based screening for suspicious activity, such as friends wishing you a “Happy 14th birthday”, which can trigger an age check.

Australian media have found it easier to find households where teens are using VPN (virtual private network) software, which masks their geographic location, to skirt the ban.

But so far, all the evidence is anecdotal. Neither the eSafety Commissioner nor any of the platforms have been able to produce any VPN usage stats. Davis said the technology could be difficult to detect.

So for now, it’s unclear how many blocked under-16s have simply opened new accounts.

And there’s nothing stopping them giving it a go, or “cool” parents helping them avoid the ban – there are no fines for kids or their caregivers under the new law.

Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, said on January 16 that she acknowledged reports some under-16s accounts remain active.

She said it was too early to determine whether progress so far constituted full compliance by platforms. However, early signs were encouraging, she said.

Long road to defining the law

Under Australia’s new legislation, social media firms can now be fined up to A$49 million ($57m) if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to weed out under-16s.

Age verification measures have been left up to the platforms.

What constitutes reasonable steps?

As with much major legislation on both sides of the Tasman, it will probably require a test case in the courts to set a precedent that resolves that point.

Once initiated, that process could take months or, with appeals, years.

What constitutes success?

Some MPs on this side of the Tasman will also be looking at the political success of the ban.

Australia’s regulator, and Prime Minister, have sought to move the debate away from the number of teens being caught in the net, or escaping it with VPNs, and frame success in much broader terms.

“While some kids may find creative ways to stay on social media, it’s important to remember that just like other safety laws we have in society, success is measured by reduction in harm and in re-setting cultural norms,” Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, said on January 16.

“Speed limits, for instance, are not a failure because some people speed. Most would agree that roads are safer because of them. Over time, compliance increases, norms settle, and the safety benefits grow.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pitched the new law as a way for parents to push back against peer pressure.

“You don’t have to worry that by stopping your child using ­social media, you’re somehow making them the odd one out,” he said.

“Now, instead of trying to set a ‘family rule’, you can point to a national ban.”

Pick your poll

A Monash University poll released on December 12 said 72% of Australian adults supported a social media ban for the under-16s.

Here, a Post/Freshwater Strategy poll released on January 21 found 65% in favour of an under-16 ban, 17% opposed and the balance undecided, with every age group surveyed backing a ban.

The b416 group touts an earlier Horizon poll that found 74% of adults in favour of social media age limits.

On Tuesday, Meta released a January 15-21 survey of 832 parents of children under 18 that found a majority of New Zealand parents surveyed (57%) say they would prefer parents “be able to choose whether their teens under the age of 16 are allowed to have social media accounts”, as opposed to a ban on social media for those under 16 (43%).

It also found that 85% were in favour of a mandatory requirement for parental approval for children under 16 to download apps.

“It’s not surprising this research has been released as regulation looms, given platforms have a clear commercial interest in resisting enforceable age limits,” said Auckland University research fellow Dr Samantha Marsh, an academic advisor to b416.

Major party support

A challenge for Meta, and its peers, is that all political parties in Australia supported the under-16 ban, bar the Greens and a handful of independents. And here, Labour has been broadly supportive of a ban, setting up any legislation introduced before November for a big majority.

Act says it favours parental responsibility, while the Green Party says although social media has perils, it also has a lot of positives for the under-16s.

An under-16 ban could “end up punishing young people for the harm that Big Tech giants are causing,” Greens co-leader Marama Davidson recently told Herald NOW.

“We absolutely need to keep them safe, but we’d like to work across parties to come up with actual tools that rein in the unregulated power and harm that these Big Tech giants host.”

It’s perhaps ominous for Meta that a related Government measure, banning smartphones from schools, has proved popular.

Stanford recently released Education Review Office (ERO) findings that she said proved the ban was working. The ERO found 79% of teachers report removing phones from the classroom had improved students’ ability to focus on work, with similar margins saying there was improved student behaviour and less bullying.

Some teachers did note that social media and other distractions can still be accessed via a PC or tablet (if a school does not block them from its network, as new Crown-funded tools allow). Stanford said she was seeking advice on extending the ban to smart watches and other devices.

Pre-emptive measures?

Davis used her Auckland talk to reiterate the “Teen Account” protections that Meta added for Instagram’s New Zealand users last year, which are currently being extended to Facebook and Messenger (a phased rollout, that started in October, should be completed in April).

A Teen Account is automatically set to private for an under-16 already signed up (or under-18s who join). That means only their existing followers can see their content or contact them. New followers have to be approved. There are also restrictions on content, such as fighting or posts promoting cosmetic surgery.

Extra control features can be layered on that let parents restrict access overnight, and see who an under-16 messages and when (though not the content of the messages). Many parents will find the controls appealing, but they are only available if a teen opts in.

Voluntary measures taken up?

How many teens have handed over the keys to their parents?

Davis would not give parental control account numbers for the US (where mandatory Teen Accounts were introduced in September 2024), Australia or New Zealand so far.

She said it was “challenging” but that the numbers were increasing.

Teen Accounts and parental controls had not been introduced in a bid to head off legislation in Australia, the US and elsewhere, Davis said.

They were just the latest step in a complicated process that had seen more than 50 protection tools introduced over the past two decades.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.