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Premier Scott Moe says he’s pleased to see Ottawa move ahead with legislated social media restrictions, but whether or not his government enacts its own law will depend on if the federal one meets Saskatchewan’s standards.
“We’ll see whether it’s temporary, what ages, what platforms and just how deep these limitations may look,” Moe said in an interview Tuesday at the Saskatoon airport just ahead of his departure for an international trade mission.
“We’ve said that in order for some type of a limitation to be effective, it should be done at the national level, and then provinces could augment or enhance that if they so chose.”
Moe was commenting on Tuesday’s news that the federal Liberal government plans to introduce legislation outlining new online safety regulations later today. Sources told CBC the legislation will include some kind of ban.
The province has shared early results of its social media ban survey, mailed out in May, with the federal government. Of all the postcard surveys returned to date, 86 per cent indicate support for some sort of social media restriction, Moe said.
“When there’s input being provided by the provinces to the federal government and they act on that input, that’s the way that co-operative federalism is supposed to work,” Moe said.
The deadline to return the postcard surveys is June 30.
Healthy habits
Social media restrictions will be more effective as a national policy, said Tamara Hinz, a child and adolescent psychologist in Saskatoon.
“This is really something that does need to be approached from more of a big picture kind of public health lens, as opposed to trying to leave such a big and complex topic up to individual families or smaller jurisdictions,” Hinz said in an interview.
She likened social media restrictions to the recent cellphone ban in classrooms or laws around cannabis and alcohol.
“Those should be family discussions you’re having, but we don’t leave those kinds of decisions up to individual parents,” Hinz said. “Some things are really only effective when you can apply it more broadly and universally.”
Hinz will be looking for how the proposed legislation holds social media companies accountable in areas such as content monitoring, algorithm manipulation and privacy issues.
More governments at home and around the world are considering social media bans or online safety measures for youth.
Last year, Australia banned children under 16 from social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. Social media companies deactivated around 4.7 million accounts belonging to kids in the month after the ban took effect.
Experts disagree on the effectiveness of social media bans, with some arguing age-based bans don’t actually make online activity safer and create privacy issues for youth and adults.
Teen talk
At Nutana Collegiate in Saskatoon, high school students interviewed by CBC said some social media restrictions are necessary.
“I think it has its positives and negatives, because there’s a lot of creepy people on the internet, but there’s also like a lot of ways you can make friends on the internet,” Grade 11 student Lilliana Marshall said.
Bullying is easier online, she added.
“You can just say whatever you want and the consequences aren’t there,” Marshall said. “People are more comfortable saying rude stuff online because they think they’re hiding.”
She said social media can help kids feel less isolated and find people with shared interests, but there are risks.
“It’s harder in small communities,” Marshall said. “I’m from a small town and I had a lot of online friends growing up. Some are good, some are bad. It’s a 50-50 thing, right?”
Nutana student T.J. Rogers said not all teens are capable of navigating online risks and a Canada-wide ban might help protect them.
“I only got [Snapchat] because I pressured my mom so much because all my friends had it,” Rogers said. “But then you get into stuff like grooming. There was a lot of grooming and a lot of inappropriate pictures get sent over Snapchat. I don’t believe Snapchat should be for anyone under 16.”
Rogers said it’s better for the government to enact a ban rather than leaving it up to parents to police their kids all day long.
“At a certain point it gets really hard to set that boundary as a parent,” Rogers said. “I feel like people need to focus more on real life and not on social media.”
