Canada Introduces Bill to Ban Social Media Access for Children Under 16, Regulate AI Chatbots

Canada has drawn a hard line in the digital sand. Prime Minister Mark Carney's government on June 10 introduced Bill C-34 , officially titled the Safe Social Media Act , which would enact two new laws: the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act.

The legislation would force social media platforms to block access for children under 16, though platforms can obtain an exemption if they put sufficient safety safeguards in place. Critically, adult content platforms would face no such exemption, with no pathway to allow minors back in regardless of safeguards.

The bill's timing is not accidental. Its introduction came weeks after families affected by one of Canada's worst mass shootings sued OpenAI, alleging the company knew the killer had been planning the attack after banning the shooter from ChatGPT over troubling conversations, yet failed to warn police.

Bill C-34 targets seven categories of harmful content including child sexual abuse material, content inducing self-harm, cyberbullying, incitement to violence, hate content, terrorism, extremism, and non-consensual intimate imagery including deepfakes.

The government acknowledged that online harms are shaped not just by individual behaviour but by how platforms are designed , specifically calling out algorithmic recommendation systems, engagement-based feeds, autoplay, and endless scrolling as amplifiers of harm, particularly for young users.

Culture Minister Marc Miller was blunt: social media and AI chatbots are engineered to capture attention, fuel anxiety, isolation, and depression, and have failed young Canadians. He stressed that "the efficacy of a law depends on compliance," which is precisely why a powerful independent commission with real teeth was necessary.

A new Digital Safety Commission of Canada will enforce the law, audit platforms, issue compliance orders, and support victims of online harm. Companies that fail to comply face penalties of 3% of global revenue or C$10 million, whichever is greater.

On the tech industry's response, Google said it is committed to working with the government; Meta said it is assessing the bill's details; X and Snapchat did not respond.

France, Denmark, and Poland are also considering tighter rules, while Greece announced a ban on social media for under-15s from January 2027. Australia, which acted first in December 2024, saw platforms deactivate nearly five million teenage accounts within a month. Canada, arriving fashionably late, is now playing unmistakable catch-up.