Ottawa/Vancouver (Anja Karadeglija The Canadian Press/Kyla Lee Acumen Law) – The Liberal government’s new online safety legislation would force social media to block access for kids under 16, though platforms will be able to obtain an exemption if they put sufficient safeguards in place.
Bill C-34, introduced Wednesday in the House of Commons, would also regulate the companies behind AI chatbots by imposing on them a duty to act responsibly. That includes measures to lower the risk of chatbots communicating harmful content and putting in place crisis intervention protocols for cases involving self-harm, suicide or violence.
“The measures in this bill represent, in my view, the basic expectation that parents and Canadians (have) for keeping their kids safe online. I believe all parties should agree on the importance of these minimum safeguards,” Culture Minister Marc Miller said at a press conference.
The bill doesn’t prescribe a specific method to verify age. In response to a question about what methods the government is looking at, Miller said there will “be a back and forth with platforms as to what protects people’s privacy and what is adequate and sufficient in the circumstances.”
Miller said the government decided not to block kids from using chatbots because chatbots are different from social media.
“They play a function and a role that can be very damaging towards kids, but can also play an important function in the educational system and in the AI strategy that we are putting forward,” Miller said. He added that “we are going to have keep a close eye on it.”
The bill will include adult content services that focus on user-shared content. The government did not give examples or specify whether they will cover sites such as OnlyFans and Pornhub.
Platforms that offer adult content would not be able to obtain an exemption from age restriction.
Background materials provided by the government said the bill will cover traditional social media services like Facebook and X. It will also apply to “public-facing conversational chatbots that can mimic human-like relationships.”
The legislation would create a new regulator, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada. The government said in briefing materials it would be an independent body whose members would be appointed by cabinet.
The bill covers seven types of harmful content, including content that induces a child to harm themselves, content that incites violence and foments hatred and non-consensual intimate content.
Social media platforms will have to remove two types of content within 24 hours — content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and non-consensual intimate images.
Platforms will also have to “apply labels to synthetically generated content,” the government said in a press release.
“While laws exist to respond once harm has happened, there is currently very little that requires online services to prevent harm in the first place,” the release said.
“The Safe Social Media Act aims to change that by ensuring that social media services and artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are responsible for addressing harm before it occurs.”
Kyla Lee of Acumen Law Responds – Does this Infringe on freedom of expression? She says yes.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2026.
