Canada Latest Country to Try to Ban Social Media Accounts for Children
Canadian lawmakers have introduced the Safe Social Media Act, which proposes to ban children under the age of 16 from having social media accounts.
“We have seen the dramatic consequences that online harms can have in our communities. The evidence is clear: online harms are intensifying,” the Canadian Government explains. “Children are especially at risks of online harm, from child sexual exploitation and cyberbullying to self-harm and mental health issues.”
The Canadian government continues, explaining that its citizens, particularly parents, are concerned about their children’s safety online, and these fears cannot be fully resolved privately.
“As a government, it is our duty to ensure that our laws keep pace with the digital era and provide a basic set of protections for children online,” the Canadian government explains.
As part of its explanation of the new bill, Bill C-34, the Canadian government notes that one in four Canadian children between the ages of 12 and 17 have reported being cyberbullied. Law enforcement authorities have similarly reported significant increases in online child sexual abuse and exploitation. Canadian lawmakers add that new and evolving technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are reshaping how harmful content is created and experienced online, dramatically increasing harm and the risk of future harm.
Children who experience online victimization are significantly more likely to suffer from mental health disorders, including suicidal ideation.
Bill C-34 includes two primary components, the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act. The first establishes new safety requirements for social media services, including AI chatbots. This requires services and the companies that offer them to identify risks of harm on their platforms, enact measures to address certain risks, implement safety design features, provide robust blocking and flagging tools, and publicly disseminate digital safety plans.
Within the Safe Social Media Act, seven types of harmful content are specifically identified, including intimate content shared without consent, any content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, content that induces children to harm themselves, content used to bully children, content that “foments hatred,” content that incites any violence, and any content related to terrorism or extreme violence.
Social media services and AI chatbot services are, under the new legislation, duty-bound to regulate their services in accordance with the new law. Companies must make certain content inaccessible to children under 16 years old and “act responsibly, by mitigating the risk that users will be exposed to harmful content, applying labels to synthetically generated content, and providing clear and accessible ways to flag harmful content and block other users.”
Further, the bill intends to implement a minimum age requirement of 16 for social media services and accounts. Services may receive an exemption if they provide sufficient safeguards, as determined by the Digital Safety Commission of Canada. While AI chatbot services are included in this bill, they are not included in the 16-year-old minimum age requirement.
The establishment of this commission is the second part of the new bill. This commission will be charged with setting new standards, enforcing the law, doling out penalties, and triaging complaints from Canadians regarding content and content providers that fail to comply with Bill C-34.
Bill C-34 must pass a vote in the House of Commons and Senate to become official law. A similar law failed in 2024 amid free speech concerns.
It is unclear precisely how Canada will enforce its new social media safety laws. As Australia’s very similar social media ban has shown, legislation like this is difficult to enforce.
Image credits: Images licensed via Depositphotos.com.
