Unless social media and AI chatbot companies clean up their act, proposed federal legislation will see Canada join countries like Australia in banning youth under 16 from creating an account on their platform.
Introduced by the federal government on June 10, Bill C-34 , or the Safe Social Media Act, would prevent people under 16 years old from creating or having accounts on some of the most popular social media platforms.
However, companies can be exempted from the restrictions if they take steps to limit access to seven types of harmful content listed in the bill:
terrorism or violent extremism content;
content that foments hate;
content used to bully a child;
content that “sexually victimizes” a child or revictimizes a survivor;
content that causes children to hurt themselves;
intimate images shared without consent; and
content that incites violence.
Recent research has highlighted the potential harms of unregulated social media and AI chatbot access for children and youth, including significant mental health impacts for girls, in particular.
Whistleblowers and now a court case have revealed the design of social media apps is intentionally addictive. Features like infinite scroll, video autoplay and continual refresh of chat feeds are used to keep users on their platforms.
As well, AI chatbots have been linked to several deaths by suicide , murder and incidents of self-harm and have contributed to delusional episodes for both adults and youth.
Grok, the AI chatbot exclusively for X users, made headlines earlier this year for creating millions of sexualized and nearly naked images of both real and imaginary women and children.
The day after Bill C-34 was announced, Canada’s privacy commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, announced his investigation into Grok has concluded that generating the fake images violates federal privacy laws.
“What we’re seeing rolling out around the world in terms of bans is an increased appetite for safer, healthier places for young people to be online,” said Kara Brisson-Boivin, director of research for digital media literacy organization MediaSmarts.
At the same time, she added, “the ban itself doesn’t really do anything itself to change the environment of the online spaces that young people are engaging in.”
The government’s explanation for why Bill C-34 is necessary includes reports that a quarter of kids aged 12 to 17 have experienced cyberbullying at least once. It also states that youth who have been victimized online are more likely to report mental health issues and suicidal ideation. And it alleges that online child sexual exploitation and abuse reports to police have increased in recent years.
Bill C-34 would create a new federal Digital Safety Commission of Canada, which would enforce the ban, monitor and investigate companies’ compliance, and receive and assess complaints from the public.
Next week is the last of the House of Commons’ current session before breaking for the summer. It is unlikely Bill C-34 will be voted on before the House reconvenes in mid-September.
The bill is vague, and there are many outstanding questions about how such a ban would be enforced and whether it will have the intended impact of protecting kids and youth — especially when reports from Australia, which implemented similar legislation in 2025, show that most young people know how to get around the country’s age restrictions.
“It’s never going to be perfect, a ban. Kids are going to get around it, and kids are still vulnerable when they’re 16. So when they do access these spaces, they need to access safe ones,” said Emily Laidlaw, the Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law and an associate professor of law at the University of Calgary.
Canada has picked a “middle-of-the-road approach,” she said, compared with other countries that ban social media access outright for youth under 16.
Instead Canada’s age restriction acts more like a social media pause, while companies work to remove harmful or potentially harmful content and design from children’s view.
The Tyee interviewed Laidlaw and Brisson-Boivin to answer some of our most pressing questions about the proposed age restrictions.
How did we get here?
This is not Canada’s first attempt at passing an online safety bill. Bill C-63 or the Online Harms Act, which did not include age restrictions on social media or AI chatbot accounts, died when Parliament was prorogued for the spring 2025 election.
But social media bans weren’t “on the radar,” Laidlaw told The Tyee, until Australia’s legislation banning youth under 16 from having social media accounts came into effect in December.
The United Kingdom has also introduced similar legislation. Its law names some of the specific platforms it will target and is set to come into effect next spring .
“It seems like such a clean solution to a complex problem,” Laidlaw said, adding that the bans in the United Kingdom and Australia are “blunt” instruments in that the…
Read the full article at The Tyee →
CA