The Government has since backed down on VPNs but the central issue remains: any ban strong enough to stop determined teenagers will almost certainly require intrusive checks on adults.
Using age verification, for example, to limit under-16s access to online content will always drift into digital IDs for everyone and state control over the internet.
The proposed under-16 social media ban is being sold as child protection. That is the attractive part of the policy. Most parents know smartphones and social media can be harmful, addictive and corrosive for young people. But the political danger is that a policy aimed at children may become a system of online control for everyone.
The Post initially reported that the government was considering a VPN ban or restrictions as part of the policy work. National’s Education Minister Erica Stanford has since said she is not pursuing VPN restrictions, after ACT made clear it would block any such move.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It encrypts a user’s internet connection and can make their device appear to be accessing the internet from another location.
ACT leader David Seymour took to X to say that “the government” is not pursuing such a thing. He said National MPs had been keen on a VPN ban at select committee, while Stanford has been developing proposals to ban under-16s from social media.
But the question remains how the government plans to enforce an under-16 social media ban without pushing adults toward online age checks, identity verification or other forms of digital access control....<<<Read More>>>...
