Yesterday the National Party introduced its bill to ban young people from social media to Parliament. While ostensibly about "protecting children", the bill in fact establishes a "papers, please" regime to use the internet, exactly like that used in tyrannies like Russia and Iran. Users will have to prove their identity to access our most common communications platform, effectively ending anonymous speech and deterring political communication, while in the process giving all our personal information to foreign privacy-raping fascists.
(Yes, I know the bill says its illegal for companies to retain identity verification information for longer than required. And if you think that means anything, against either companies whose business model is destroying privacy, or our own government, I have a bridge across Cook Strait to sell you).
The good news is that no-one is buying it. National's policy - developed by public servants at public expense - has already been disowned by its own coalition partners, who are also upset at the way it has been announced and introduced despite their opposition. The Greens have said "fuck no!". And even notoriously-chickenshit Labour has said its in no hurry to announce its position. And its not hard to see why: because in addition to the privacy nightmare highlighted above, the simple fact is that these bans don't work. Just look over the Tasman, where 80% of under-16s are still using social media despite being officially banned from it. And that's also perfectly understandable: because this is how we live our lives now. People of all ages organise their work, their education, their social lives over social media. And trying to ban them from that, from hanging out with their friends, herding cats for their local sports or cultural group, or organising politically to change the government and the world, is a recipe for widespread non-compliance and entrenched contempt for the law.
This is not to understate the harm caused from and on social media. But trying to blindfold and gag kids, while making the rest of us live in a tyrannical surveillance nightmare, is not a solution.
What might be solutions? Much of the harm is caused by social media platforms themselves, invading privacy and pushing harmful content. So outlaw those things, and make those platforms responsible! Platforms currently enjoy "third party" protection for the harmful content they push, on the basis that they're just a neutral carrier. But if they're running an algorithm which puts stuff on people's timelines, they're making editorial choices, and they can and should be held accountable for them. Or, to put it in English, if Elon Musk's Nazi site pushes the Christchurch murder video onto people's feeds, then it should be held legally responsible for that and fined into oblivion. Likewise, we can impose a duty of care on social media platforms - and Labour has a member's bill for this. Either would have a lower impact on the human rights of New Zealanders than National's internet tyranny, while being far more effective at protecting all of us. But national clearly isn't interested in "effective"; they're interested in posturing before an election. And Aotearoa deserves better than that from its supposed government.
Oh FFS! I just got this posted, and then I see Labour has decided to support National's bill to select committee, solely so National can't spend the runup to the election bashing them on this. "A shiver looking for a spine to run down" indeed.
