B416: The high-profile group backing a social media ban for under-16s
Moves to safeguard children from social media harm are ramping up, but with technology racing ahead, worried parents say New Zealand needs to tighten access.
By the time Sophie (not her real name) was 14, she and her circle of friends were all using social media. In the beginning, their TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram feeds were full of “fun” content: dance routines and shared memes that made them laugh. The Auckland teen often spent hours a day browsing the platforms, but what she was scrolling through changed over months from lighthearted to something much darker. Her circle began sharing videos on self-harming, eating disorders and depression – their own created content and material from others.
When the friends “liked” each other’s posts, algorithms driving the feeds channelled similar content to them. It became more and more disturbing.
Sophie recalls a sleepless night after a friend posted on Snapchat photos of pills she said she was going to take to end her life. But photos and messages disappear on Snapchat after a few seconds, so even if she had wanted to alert adults, there would have been no evidence of the threat. (The girl did not take the pills.)
“The self-harm videos in my TikTok feed became competitive,” Sophie, now 17, says. “Girls and boys I didn’t know would be showing their scars, and you’d look in the comments, and it would be like, ‘Well, I self-harmed five times,’ and someone would respond, ‘Well, I did 10 times.’
“I’d be watching this, and I’d feel bad because I’d think, ‘I only did twice.’ It just fed this crazy mindset.”
Concerned about her rising levels of anxiety and suspicious of what may have been driving it, Sophie’s parents imposed strict phone restrictions. “It was like dealing with an addict,” says her mother Emily, a tech executive. “ She’d be in total meltdown.”
Kids are so much savvier than parents. They can download an app and put it behind a calculator icon on their phone.
The platforms have since banned the search phrase “self-harm”. If you type that into TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat you’ll be directed to an 0800 number. But kids know there are ways around it, and that concerns Sophie, now in Year 13. She is one of the students joining the ranks of concerned parents calling for a ban on social media access for under-16s. “I’d love it if social media didn’t exist now,” she says. “Even now. I find the platforms feed my anxiety.”
A new parent-led lobby group, B416, has been lobbying the government for restriction on social media access for younger Kiwis. Co-founded and chaired by entrepreneur Cecilia Robinson (My Food Bag, Tend healthcare) it has other prominent names on board – Outward Bound CEO Malindi MacLean, Kiwibank director and former Xero executive Anna Curzon, Zuru toys co-founder and entrepreneur Anna Mowbray and stockbroker Blair Knight. Other high-profile parents with big social media followings involved include Gemma McCaw and Matilda Green. All are parents of teens or younger children.
“Parents feel absolutely helpless,” says Emily, also part of B416. “The only way to help our kids is to legislate and educate.”