OTTAWA – As anticipated in recent days by several media outlets (read here), the Canadian government has finally presented a new online safety bill, Bill C-34, titled the “Safe Social Media Act”, aimed at strengthening the protection of children and teenagers in the “digital jungle”, which is full of risks linked not only to social media but also to artificial intelligence.
In the preamble, the government document — officially presented on Wednesday afternoon: here — highlights that the use of digital platforms has profoundly transformed citizens’ social lives, contributing to a significant increase in “online harms”, particularly among young people. The cited statistics show a rise in cyberbullying cases, an increase in online child sexual abuse, as well as worsening mental health effects among young users exposed to digital victimisation, including cases of suicidal ideation.
The government also stresses that online harms are not only the result of individual behaviour, but also of how platforms are designed: recommendation algorithms, infinite feeds, autoplay features and engagement-based systems can amplify harmful content and increase users’—especially minors’—exposure to potentially damaging material.
Artificial intelligence has now added further complexity, particularly through chatbots that can interact directly with users and, in some cases, reinforce risky behaviours or provide unsafe responses in critical situations.
To address these phenomena, the Liberal government’s bill introduces a new regulatory framework that would require social media and AI services to mitigate risks, adopt safer design features, and ensure effective tools for reporting and blocking harmful content.
Among the key innovations is the definition of seven categories of harmful or tightly regulated content, including non-consensual intimate content, child sexual abuse material, hate speech, terrorist content, and content promoting violence or self-harm. Platforms would also be required to publish digital safety plans and increase transparency regarding their safety measures. Social media companies would further be obliged to remove particularly serious content and make sexually explicit deepfakes inaccessible.
Regarding minors, the government intends to introduce a minimum age of 16 for access to social media, while allowing exemptions for platforms that can demonstrate adequate safety safeguards. However, the bill does not specify a mandatory method for age verification, meaning platforms would have flexibility in how to implement it, under the oversight of a future independent body, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, tasked with enforcing the rules, monitoring platforms, handling user complaints, and imposing penalties in case of violations. These penalties could be substantial, with fines of up to 3% of a company’s gross global revenue.
The federal government said the law responds to growing demands for greater accountability from large digital platforms, which are seen as unable to self-regulate effectively. The initiative also comes in a global context where several countries, such as Australia, have already introduced or are considering similar restrictions for minors on social media.
However, the key question remains: will younger users—born and raised in the digital era—really be unable to bypass these restrictions? And above all, are tech giants willing to risk losing the “goldmine” represented by teenage users?
