Canada is the latest to try limiting kids' social media exposure — but new bill gives platforms room to change

Canada is aiming to fall in other countries in restricting societal media for children, but some experts say it's the other things in Canada's online harms banker's bill — viz. Refuge requirements for social platforms and establishing a new regulator — that could set it apart.

On Wednesday, Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller introduced the two-part Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34), the federal government's latest attempt to create a law to address dangers Canadians — especially children — face from social media. It also wraps in artificial intelligence in the form of chatbots. 

While the first part of the bill sketches out new duties and safety requirements for social media services and AI chatbots, the second part establishes a new Digital Safety Commission to set and enforce standards and address complaints filed by Canadians.

The bill must be passed by Parliament before becoming law.

If it passes, young Canadians will face hurdles accessing social media, as platforms will be forced to restrict accounts for those under 16 via age-verification or age-estimation measures. 

Miller says new social media bill is vital but 'not an exercise in perfection'

Yet there's the potential for exemption if online services implement "adequate safeguards" — which are as yet undefined — to protect kids.

It's an enticement that technology analyst Carmi Levy thinks may encourage real change versus just installing an age gate.

"It's very different from legislation we've seen in other countries and it certainly leaves much more room for the technology companies to actually change their technology — not just remove kids from the platform, but to actually make it safer," he said from London, Ont.

From Australia to Indonesia, France to Malaysia, national social media bans have multiplied in the past year, but many focus on removing kids from platforms, Levy noted.

He thinks the Canadian bill going further — by outlining safety requirements and including that potential exemption, for instance — suggests the government is learning from others' experiences and "forcing the technology companies to update their platforms [and] build safety in."

Levy said he also appreciates the inclusion of AI chatbots, which he feels was a missed opportunity in Australia’s landmark law, which passed in November 2024 and is in effect as of last December. Bill C-34 sets safety requirements for AI chatbot services, though it doesn't age-restrict their usage.

"There is ample evidence here that Canada has been watching the Australian experience closely and has been incorporating learnings from the experience Down Under into this new piece of Canadian legislation — and I think that's a good thing. We don't need to reinvent the wheel."

Canada proposes social media ban for kids — critics say it won't work

In a statement on Wednesday, tech giant Meta — parent company of Facebook and Instagram — blasted social media bans as "counterproductive" and reiterated its stance of strengthening online safety via parental controls and device-level age verification. But it also expressed some optimism regarding Canada's proposal. 

"We are encouraged that the government appears to recognize that online services that provide teens with sufficient safeguards, like we've done with teen accounts and for teens' conversations with AIs, provide real value to young people," a spokesperson said. 

Given the bans and restrictions she's seen in other jurisdictions, McGill University professor Sara Grimes expressed relief on Wednesday at the "thoughtful and nuanced" approach laid out in Bill C-34. 

"The safety-by-design focus, the establishment of a [safety] commissioner and also this possibility for different service providers to meet a set of criteria and show that they can be appropriate for kids was massive," said Grimes, a children's digital rights researcher, in an interview from Gatineau, Que.

Proposed digital safety commission would 'give some teeth' to social media ban, Miller says

Brazil enacted a law in March that includes prohibiting social media platforms from including addictive design features like infinite scrolling. Grimes is encouraged by the wider recognition of safer design, including Canada putting more emphasis on it, along with privacy considerations.

In Canada's bill, "the emphasis on design, the emphasis on controlling for content, the emphasis in identifying these specific harms … these are the things that the experts are worried about," she said. "These are things that kids themselves are worried about."

Canada's approach gives kids "access to the good parts of the online world, while still bringing in … real protections against the stuff that's hurting them and that they don't want to see."

A main objective of Bill C-34 is to reduce exposure to seven categories of the most harmful content found online, including:

Grimes is hopeful every country demanding safer social media creates momentum for positive change.

"It might be that we are gonna reach a tipping point where at least some of these big companies will say, 'Hey, everyone wants this. The consumer is demanding this globally.'" 

Exactly how Bill C-34 will play out if passed remains to be seen. Grimes is wary, for instance, about children's privacy rights whenever age-verification or age-assurance technology is employed.

She's also eager for more details about the specific safety criteria and guidelines that the yet-to-be-established Digital Safety Commission will set for social platforms, AI chatbots and other regulated online services.

Whether the requirements will ultimately be feasible for the tech giants as well as smaller, independent platforms — some of which are already trying to operate differently, Grimes says — "is a huge unknown."

Is Australia’s social media ban working?

Amid a wave of lawsuits against social platforms, Canada's bill does appear to consider wider discussions and what's worked versus what hasn't, says online safety expert and instructor Brandon Laur, CEO of the White Hatter Group, based in Langford, B.C.  

Laur is also curious about specifics on safer design, pointing to the endless scroll, video autoplay and attention-seeking algorithms flagged in U.S. Court cases accusing social platforms of harming young users.

Urging design changes should trump an age ban, Laur says, given that a vast number of young users in places like Australia have already proven adept at bypassing age verification.

In other cases, young people facing an imminent ban jump ship to new platforms, he says.

"If we ban kids from these big social networks that do have at least some safety features in place already and ... Force them to go to apps that have zero security… is it going to [push] the problem deeper underground?" Laur asked. 

Describing Bill C-34 as a "moving target" that will get "firmed up and refined" through the legislative process in the months ahead, tech analyst Levy says Canadians should anticipate adjustments along the way.

"Canadians should be prepared for a very protracted period of negotiations of pulling the Digital Safety Commission together and obviously, as the law goes through first and second reading, it will be modified," he said. 

"We have not hit a finish line here. We're just getting started." 

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