A position from Aki Works

The open web needs no passports.

Fix harmful platform algorithms and invest in real youth support. Don't build a digital surveillance layer.

Why digital ID mandates and social media bans hurt everyone

The proposal to ban under-16s from social media, and the compulsory age verification required to enforce it,¹ trades away fundamental digital privacy and open web access in exchange for the illusion of action.

Protecting young people from predatory algorithmic engagement is a critical priority. But slapping an identity checkpoint on the internet fundamentally misunderstands how digital systems work, and ignores the real roots of youth distress.

A superficial band-aid on a national crisis

New Zealand ranks 32nd out of 36 wealthy countries for overall child wellbeing, and last of all of them for child and youth mental health.⁷ Youth suicide rates there are among the highest in the developed world, and the disparity for rangatahi Māori is starker still.^6,8,9

This crisis demands urgent, well-funded solutions: accessible community mental health services, school counsellors, anti-bullying resources, and direct support for at-risk youth.

Treating a complex public health failure as an "app access problem" gives politicians a convenient headline while doing nothing to fund frontline support.

The global experiment has already failed

New Zealand is repeating the mistakes of overseas jurisdictions rather than learning from them.

The Australian and UK precedents: Mandates in Australia and the UK proved that hard bans fail to stop young people reaching platforms. They triggered surges in VPN downloads, burner account creation, and trivial workarounds within hours of rollout.^2,3

Driving teens to dangerous extremes: Banning mainstream apps does not disconnect young people. It pushes them toward unmoderated fringe platforms, offshore services and encrypted backchannels that lack basic child safety tooling and moderation.^4,5

International resistance: Countries such as Japan have explicitly rejected blanket youth bans, recognising that social networks function as essential communication tools and community spaces that cannot simply be outlawed without violating basic rights.

The "privacy tax" falls on every adult

To prove who is under 16, platforms must verify who is over 16. In practice that forces millions of adults to upload driver's licences and passports, or submit to invasive facial biometrics, just to use everyday digital tools.

This dismantles online anonymity, a vital safeguard for whistleblowers, public accountability, investigative work, and vulnerable people seeking advice or community safely.⁴

Honeypots for cybercriminals

Outsourcing age verification to private contractors or tech conglomerates creates massive, centralised databases of sensitive identity records.

Forcing citizens to hand over identity papers to browse the web creates severe, unnecessary cybersecurity risk and identity theft exposure. It is a breach waiting to happen, built deliberately.

Regulate platform design, not user identity

An age ban shifts the burden from how platforms are designed to who is allowed through the door. It leaves the toxic mechanics of big tech completely untouched:⁵

Outrage-driven recommendation algorithms optimised for doomscrolling.
Infinite scroll loops, autoplay mechanics and predatory dark patterns.
Late-night notifications engineered to disrupt sleep cycles.

Banning access to broken algorithms is like hanging a poster over a structural hole in a wall. It creates the illusion of a quick fix while the foundation keeps rotting.

What actually works: safety by design

Real digital safety doesn't require turning the internet into a checkpoint.

Algorithmic accountability

Legally mandate that platforms turn off engagement-maximising algorithms and behavioural profiling by default for minors.

Frontline youth funding

Channel resources into accessible mental health infrastructure and real-world support systems, the things that actually reach a struggling teenager.¹

Privacy by default

Enforce strict limits on behavioural tracking and dark patterns across all consumer technology, for every user, at every age.

A safer internet is built by holding platforms accountable for predatory product design and supporting young people in the real world, not by stripping digital privacy from an entire country.