Canada Set to Table Social Media Ban for Minors as Early as Today

If you have a kid under 16 in Canada — or you just care about what happens online — this one's worth your attention.

The federal government officially tabled Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, in the House of Commons on Wednesday. The short version: if it passes, social media platforms would be legally required to block anyone under 16 from holding an account in Canada.

Culture Minister Marc Miller introduced the bill, and he didn't mince words. "We're failing our children. Enough is enough," he said after tabling it. The government's position is that platforms have had years to design safer products and haven't — so now Ottawa is stepping in.

Here's how it would actually work. The bill doesn't permanently lock kids out forever. It's more of a stick-and-carrot setup: social media companies get banned from serving under-16s by default, but they can apply for an exemption if they can prove they've put real safety measures in place — things like age-appropriate design features, content warnings, and limits on addictive mechanics like endless scrolling. Platforms built around adult content, however, would get no such out.

The bill would also create a new Digital Safety Commission — an independent body that would set the standards platforms need to meet and handle complaints from Canadians when companies don't act on harmful content. Officials estimate it could take up to 18 months after the bill becomes law for that regulator to be up and running. The under-16 ban, though, could kick in even before the commission is fully operational.

On enforcement: companies that break the rules could face fines of up to $10 million or three per cent of their gross global revenue — whichever is bigger. For a company like Meta, that "whichever is bigger" clause is the real teeth.

The bill also takes aim at AI chatbots — things like ChatGPT or Gemini — though it stops short of banning under-16s from using them. Instead, chatbot companies would be required to have crisis intervention measures in place when a user expresses thoughts of self-harm or violence. Notably, they would not be required to report those conversations to police.

There's a big unanswered question hanging over all of this: how exactly will platforms verify someone's age? The bill doesn't spell that out. Miller said the government and platforms will figure it out together, but privacy experts are already raising red flags. To confirm someone is 16 or older, platforms would likely need identity documents, biometric data, or behavioral inferences — and Canada's own privacy commissioner has flagged that protecting kids online shouldn't come at the cost of everyone else's privacy.

This isn't the first time Ottawa has tried to tackle online harms. A previous attempt, Bill C-63 under Justin Trudeau, died when Parliament was prorogued in early 2025. That earlier bill was also dogged by free speech concerns from the Conservatives over its Criminal Code provisions. The new bill deliberately leaves those criminal amendments out. Still, Conservatives say they want to review the legislation before weighing in.

Canada is joining a growing global wave here. Australia became the first country to implement a under-16 social media ban late last year. The UK, Spain, South Korea, Malaysia, and Brazil are all moving in similar directions. Early data from Australia, though, suggests many kids are simply finding workarounds — something critics here are already pointing to.

Public support in Canada is strong: a March 2026 Angus Reid poll found 75% of Canadians back a full ban for under-16s. But that same poll found 72% think parents — not government — should be primarily responsible for managing kids' social media. That tension is at the heart of the whole debate, and this bill doesn't fully resolve it.