Canada introduces bill to ban social media for children under 16

The measure besides aims to marque AI chatbots safer by establishing a integer regulator to acceptable information standards.

The Canadian authorities has introduced a caller integer information measure that would prohibition societal ⁠media for children nether 16, with exemptions for platforms that conscionable definite information standards.

The measure besides aims to marque AI chatbots safer by mounting up a integer regulator ⁠to found information standards, a authorities authoritative said.

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The projected “Digital Safety Act” makes Canada the latest successful a question of countries moving to ace down connected societal media platforms implicit concerns of harm to children.

“We person seen the precise superior consequences that online harms tin have. The information of children cannot beryllium an afterthought,” the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, Marc Miller, said successful a statement.

Companies could look penalties of 3% of planetary gross oregon up to C$10 cardinal ($7.2 million), whichever is more, for failing to comply.

“Social media platforms and AI chatbots are designed to seizure attention. They bash not enactment steadfast puerility improvement and person go a root of anxiety, isolation, slump and a scope of different intelligence wellness challenges for galore young Canadians,” Miller said.

“This authorities volition supply a safer situation for young Canadians and empower them to link in-person, physique friendships, absorption successful school, and larn real-world skills truthful they tin thrive.”

The bill’s instauration successful Parliament comes weeks aft families affected by 1 of the country’s worst wide shootings sued OpenAI, alleging that the institution knew the slayer was readying the onslaught aft it banned the shooter from its level successful June past twelvemonth implicit the user’s troubling conversations connected ChatGPT, but did not pass police.

In its connection for Bill C-34, the Canadian authorities said that isolated from idiosyncratic behaviour, online harms “are besides shaped by however integer services are designed and operated. Features specified arsenic algorithmic proposal systems, engagement-based feeds, autoplay, and endless scrolling tin amplify harmful contented and summation exposure, peculiarly for young users.”

AI has added caller challenges, and integer services person “not kept gait with the scale, speed, and severity of online harms”, the authorities said.

Against that backdrop, the measure aims to acceptable up caller information requirements for societal media and AI chatbot services, requiring them to place risks of harm connected their platforms, follow measures to code definite risks, instrumentality safety-focused and age-appropriate plan features, supply tools, specified arsenic blocking and flagging, and more.

It besides wants platforms to region contented that includes the non-consensual sharing of intimate images wrong 24 hours of being flagged, according to section media reports.

In December, Australia became the world’s first country to prohibition societal media for children nether 16. ⁠A period aft its law was introduced, societal media companies collectively deactivated the accounts of astir 5 ⁠million teenagers. Government officials successful a method briefing said it could instrumentality a twelvemonth for the measure to pass, and 18 months to acceptable up the integer regulator erstwhile it does.

France, Denmark and ⁠Poland are besides considering tightening rules astir societal media usage for children, portion Greece successful April announced it would prohibition entree to young radical nether 15 from January 2027.