Canada introduces ban on social media for children under 16 | Social Media Stories

The bill also aims to make AI chatbots safer by establishing a digital regulator to set safety standards.

Canada’s government has introduced a new digital security law that would restrict TV viewing to children under 16, with exemptions for platforms that meet certain security standards, months after Australia introduced a global child protection law.

The bill, which was unveiled on Wednesday, also aims to make artificial chatbots safer by establishing a digital regulator to set safety standards, a government official said.

His parliamentary debut comes weeks after the families of victims of one of the country’s worst terrorist attacks opposed OpenAIsaying that the company knew that the killer was planning an attack on ChatGPT but did not alert the police.

Australia became the first country to do so ban social TV children under 16 in December. A month after the law was enacted, social media companies collectively suspended the accounts of nearly 5 million teenagers.

France, Denmark and Poland are also considering tightening laws on children’s media use, while Greece in April announced it would ban access to under-15s from January 2027.

Canadian government officials at a technology conference said it could take a year to pass the bill and 18 months to set up digital regulators.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has a very small number of people in Parliament, which is due for a summer break soon.

In its proposal for Bill C-34, the government said that apart from human behavior, harm on the Internet “is also created by the way digital services are designed and used.” Factors such as algorithmic processing, dating feeds, autoplay, and endless scrolling can amplify harmful content and increase exposure, especially for younger users.

AI has added new challenges, and “freedom and digital services have not matched the scale, speed, and severity of online harm”, the government said.

Based on this, the bill seeks to establish new security requirements for social media services and AI chatbot services, which require these services to identify risks that may occur on their platforms, take measures to address certain risks, use security-related features and similar age, create user guidelines, provide tools, such as blocking and flagging, and provide digital security plans.

It also wants the platform to remove content that “exploits a child”, or includes inappropriate sharing of intimate photos, within 24 hours of being discovered, according to local media reports.