Conservatives questioned whether Ottawa’s proposed ban on social-media accounts for children below the age of 16 will work in practice or will be bypassed by teens, as MPs debated the government’s safe social-media bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday. Canadian Identity Minister Marc Miller said a bill to combat harm online was long overdue, particularly to protect children, during his first major speech in the Commons on Bill C-34. Conservative heritage critic Rachael Thomas stressed there were major harms being caused to children – including by AI chatbots – but said she wanted to hear details about how the bill would achieve its aims. The bill will make social-media companies block users below the age of 16 from having accounts. But they would be able to seek exemptions from the under-16 ban if they can demonstrate to a new digital safety regulator that they have implemented sufficient safeguards to protect children.The proposed ban follows a similar move in Australia, where experts say many children have found ways to get around it by migrating to smaller platforms not covered by their law. Marsha Lederman: Ban social media for young people? Good luck with thatOttawa’s new safe social-media bill is the third attempt by the Liberal government to bring in legislation to deal with online harms, and experts say it has addressed many of the criticisms of previous versions. In the second reading Commons debate, Mr. Miller said in recent years there has been a sharp increase in online harms, with tragic impacts in Canadian communities. He referred to the Tumbler Ridge shooting in February when eight victims, mostly schoolchildren, were killed by a teenage shooter who had used OpenAI’s chatbot to get advice on carrying out a violent attack. He said children online have been encouraged to harm themselves or even to take their lives. The minister cited a case of a young person who was admitted to a children’s hospital in Toronto in a catatonic state after classmates created a website to humiliate them. “Police reported online child sexual exploitation incidents rose by 347 per cent between 2014 and 2024 alone,” he said. One in four young people say they have experienced cyberbullying, an increase of 500 per cent since 2014, he added.Opinion: When it comes to kids and social media, Canadians have had enoughHe said the bill “will ensure that our children and Canadians can benefit from new technologies without compromising their safety and privacy.”The bill also proposes new measures regulating AI chatbots, including a requirement for conversational chatbots that mimic human-like relationships to act responsibly. The use of AI chatbots would not be subject to age restrictions, but companies would have to implement crisis intervention protocols for when a chatbot user expresses intent to harm themselves or do violence to another person.Ms. Thomas choked back tears during a speech in the Commons, saying the Tumbler Ridge shooting “raised serious questions with regard to the role that artificial intelligence can play in the lives of young people, as well as the responsibility that technology companies have to protect the general public.”“This tragedy devastated families. It crushed a community, and it shook our entire country,” she said. It had left Maya Gebala, a student who was shot at the school, ”with life altering injuries.”I’m a child psychologist. Here’s what I think about social media bansMs. Thomas said C-34 “has potential,” but its success will depend on whether it delivers meaningful protections for children while supporting parents. “Good intentions are not enough. We must look carefully at whether or not this bill’s stated intent will in fact be achieved,“ she said. The bill requires platforms to implement safe design features, but she said what this meant was not transparent in the bill. She also questioned whether teenagers would find ways to evade the under-16 social-media ban as they have in Australia, saying young people and parents have told her they will find workarounds. “Many of these kids are smart. Australia applied a ban, and 70 per cent of their youth are still plugged in. So, what assurance do we have that Canada’s model will actually be more effective?”Addictive features targeting teens must be key focus in planned under-16 social media ban, experts sayMs. Thomas also asked how age verification will be achieved and what safeguards there are to ensure personal details are not retained, misused or exposed in a data breach. She said parents constantly raise the use by children of video gaming platforms such as Roblox and Minecraft, and told MPs grooming and exploitation happen on such platforms. “Why does Bill C-34 focus heavily on social-media feeds while leaving these major gaming environments entirely out?” she asked. Ms. Thomas said during the summer a doctor had told her about a young patient who was subject to severe bullying. The young girl had asked an AI chatbot how to end her life by overdosing on iron pills. “When she hesitated to swallow that many pills, the chatbot actually suggested an alternative way of being able to consume them. The girl did as the chatbot told her and ended up in the hospital. Fortunately, however, she was saved,” Ms. Thomas said. “This is alarming. A child who was already struggling, who needed support and compassion, turned to a chatbot for answers and received instructions that were meant to end her life.”
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