David Lillis: Banning Social Media to Younger Teenagers?

New Zealand has a Problem

Recently, Peter Williams has commented on Australia's social media ban for under-16s (Williams, 2025) and Joanna Grey has expressed her own views on the problem in New Zealand (Grey, 2026). Unfortunately, the results of online harassment of young people can be extreme; for example, see Leask (2024). The comments posted on a related website to Leask’s article provide very disturbing but compelling reading (Reddit, 2024), and here I reproduce several of those comments. Please read them in full.

“I moved here 5 years ago. Bullying here is off the charts and so normalised compared to back home. The only time it gets properly addressed here is when a third party independently raises it. Speak up when you see it instead of exhibiting apathy. It makes a huge difference.”

“It is often the bully that gets protected - or so we've found. The bullied child either is forced to move school, or leaves schooling all together. It is so wrong how we deal with bullying in this country.”

“I hope that those bullying her now see the error of their ways, since personally there will be no repercussions for their actions and a family is now living without a beautiful daughter, sister, grandchild and niece.”

“. . . because there seems to be no consequences for bad behaviour, this type of tragedy will happen time and time again.”

“Same as my daughter - cyber-bullied and attempted suicide. I found her and brought her back. Now we are 3 years into dealing with the brain damage. ACC paying my wife and I to caregive, as there is nothing for under 18's in New Zealand. Happened when she was 12. Still happening, nothing changing. Social media allows anyone access to your children, and your child won’t tell you.”

“As someone who lost their little sister to bullying at the age of 11, I feel the pain. No-one should put up with this. What is wrong with society?”

“I couldn't read the full story. It was too emotional and too relatable to me! I want to know why is always the victim of bullying the one who needs counselling? It's the bullies who are the problem! Is there really no strategy to deal with bullies?”

“. . . government, schools, and parents need to step up and own the bullies that create this much distress in a child's life. There has to be consequence in life for everyone, bullies included...”

“God defend New Zealand; please we beseech you before it becomes over run with selfish, self-centred people who don’t care about children, the sick and disabled, the widows and the elderly.”

Finally - even if, like me, you are not religious, this last quotation must surely affect you deeply!

“A dear wee girl has lost her life after bullying! This is heartbreaking. May she rest in peace until the Lord Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead.”

Now it seems that France may follow Australia in banning social media to younger teenagers (e.g. Schofield, 2026). There, a new law could block access for under 15-year-olds to networks such as Snapchat, Instagram and Tiktok. Apparently, President Emmanuel Macron wants the ban in place by the start of the school year in September. Schofield tells us that this initiative could follow a global trend towards restricting social networks for children, on the basis of extensive damage that they cause to mental health. On the possible risks to mental health, please listen to Anna Cooban reporting to CNN (Cooban, 2026).

Not Only Children

Of course, it is not only young people who can be hurt, and bloggers or influencers can indeed behave viciously on social media towards adults. My own extensive discussions with staff of Netsafe New Zealand reveal that we have a widespread problem with social media - essentially online harassment that can hurt emotionally and damage reputations and potentially even hurt careers (Lillis, 2025a and 2025b). On the first of these two articles, one member of the public commented as follows:

“. . . a very serious issue here - trolling and abuse of private individuals. It is rife, it happens to people on all sides of politics, from people on all sides of politics, and targets are both men and women. But it doesn't surprise me that the case focused on here is female. My personal and observed experience suggests that women are targeted more savagely than men (in general terms), mainly because they're more likely to be judged on their appearance (especially) or their assumed private life. On social media, as a woman I haven't used for some years anything showing my appearance; nor do I disclose anything about my private life.”

Like many others I have looked at various elements of social media in New Zealand and recently I commented that I had been appalled by what I had seen and heard. I was indeed and continue to be appalled, not at the right of bloggers and influencers to express themselves on political or social issues, but at the vindictiveness and inhumanity that they and their followers sometimes display to others. Apart from bad language, extreme rudeness, insinuating racism or other negative attitudes on the part private people (as opposed to public figures ) who they do not know personally, we see influencers characterizing the opinions or policies of others very negatively. We see attacks on private people, sometimes involving serious allegations such as dishonesty – unfair allegations that can have serious impact when they are reinforced by dozens or even hundreds of followers.

As just one example that I have mentioned previously, a private person here in New Zealand has been attacked online and called variously a liar, a fraud, corrupt, dishonest, a thief, a gaslighter and other names, when in fact there was no justification for such invective (see Lillis, 2025a). I have spoken to her and I can confirm that she was very upset over what had occurred and was concerned about reputational damage and possible impact on her career.

In the end, she was forced to close down part of her own business website when followers of the particular influencer, a young woman, posted numerous nasty comments there. It is truly appalling that this episode, and others like it, are real and that little or nothing is done about them. Incidentally, my comments, which were intended to expose such behaviour with the intent of stopping or at least reducing the attacks, ignited quite a backlash!

Crossing the Line of Acceptability

Of itself, bad language does not cross the line, and neither does lashing out at public figures such as Ministers or Members of Parliament, unless hate speech or incitement to violence are involved. However, attacks on private people with the support of followers, can very definitely cross a moral line, and it is regrettable that Netsafe does not yet have sufficient legal powers to deal with such cases. I and others have attempted to call out such behaviour, but private people who are targeted online do not necessarily want further exposure. Astonishingly, attempting to expose such behaviour carries the risk that the platform on which you publish your exposure will be sued for defamation by the blogger or influencer. Further, Netsafe tells us that any exposure, however well-intended, may make you a target for further attack. I know this to be true from personal observation.

Denigrating material posted on platforms such as Facebook is easily discoverable and can been viewed widely here in New Zealand and overseas. However, the targeted person may be blocked from the relevant pages by the influencer and prevented from responding. Thus, very often the targeted person has limited or no means at all of fighting back.

Banning Social Media for Young People?

Online abuse includes all kinds of abuse that occur on the Internet, including social networks, online games or using mobile phones. Children and young people may experience cyberbullying, grooming, sexual abuse or emotional abuse, and they can be at risk from people they know, as well as from strangers. I have been informed about a variety of abuse, including attempts at ostracism online (known as “cyberostracism”), name-calling, attacks on the basis of race, sexual orientation, religion or disability, and pejorative comments on a child’s personal appearance, and I have seen several examples.

One member of the public, commenting on Lillis (2025a) said:

“I worked in an industry that saw the "aftermath" of what on-line bullying, via cell phone, in the first instance can do to people, especially those whose ages go from 13 years upward. Most it stemmed from those around them either at -- school, more so high school, but sometimes at intermediate level - the level of social interaction - 18 years and up.

Sadly, in one instance it involved the Police, due to the tragedy that occurred, found by her mother. When the Police got to work on trying to bring a jigsaw puzzle together, they found, via her phone, that the bullying stemmed from students at her high school. From Police comments, this was not an isolated event, but very common.”

Peter Williams questions whether the ban in Australia is achieving its intended purpose, or whether is it merely redirecting teenage ingenuity. He says that governments routinely underestimate adolescents’ capacity to circumvent rules that they consider unreasonable (Williams, 2025). Possibly this is true. However, Cecilia Robinson is definitely in favour of restrictions, and in her interview with the NZ Herald she talks about improved mental health, reduced cyber-bullying and improved academic performance that has resulted from removal of phones from schools (Robinson, 2025). However, not all of the public comments on that interview are supportive of a ban, and there is a view that a ban would infringe upon the right to access information, the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy.

On another side of the debate, one expert on communications at the University of Otago, Dr. Michael Daubs, notes the problems inherent in age verification and mentions benefits from social media (Daubs, 2025).

I do know several parents who are concerned about the amount of time that their children spend on social media and are taking steps to limit that time. I know others who are concerned about the kind of material to which their children are exposed. However, I do not know enough to form a clear view on whether New Zealand should ban certain platforms to young teenagers. I do not know if it is possible or practicable to do so, or even whether a ban would improve matters appreciably. However, we do know that we have a serious problem in New Zealand and we need a very frank national debate on this urgent matter.

References

Cooban, Anna (2026). Social media companies in court over mental health harm claims
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/26/world/video/social-media-trial-cooban-live-ctw-0126-10a-seg2-cnni-world-fast

Daubs, Michael (2025). NZHerald. Is it time to ban social media for U16s? Expert weighs in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uda0yBiO3NM

Grey, Joanna (2026). The Social Media Ban for Under-16s Illuminates Our Erroneous Thinking About Children
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2026/01/joanna-gray-social-media-ban-for-under.html

Leask, Anna (2024). 13-year-old girl dies suddenly after bullying - a family’s plea to NZ’s leaders. New Zealand Post, 18 May, 2024.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/13-year-old-girl-dies-suddenly-after-bullying-a-familys-plea-to-nzs-leaders/S77QB2ILUBDPZAKBUDXQQOKZVU/

Lillis, David (2025a). Harassing Others Online
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/11/david-lillis-harassing-others-online.html

Lillis, David (2025b). Fighting Online Harassment
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/12/david-lillis-fighting-online-harassment.html

Reddit (2024). 13-year-old girl dies suddenly after bullying - a family’s plea to NZ’s leaders https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1cufdq2/13yearold_girl_dies_suddenly_after_bullying_a/

Robinson, Cecilia (2025). NZHerald. Should New Zealand Follow Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvYfujWSvLc

Schofield, Hugh (2026). France debates under-15s social media ban endorsed by Macron
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07x003vx0yo

Williams, Peter (2025). Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/12/peter-williams-australias-under-16.html

Dr David Lillis trained in physics and mathematics at Victoria University and Curtin University in Perth, working as a teacher, researcher, statistician and lecturer for most of his career. He has published many articles and scientific papers, as well as a book on graphing and statistics.