Canada introduces bill to ban social media for children under 16

The Canadian government has introduced a new digital safety bill that would ban social media for children under 16, with exemptions for platforms that meet certain safety standards, months after Australia enacted the world’s first social media ban for children.

The bill, unveiled on Wednesday, also aims to make artificial intelligence chatbots safer by establishing a digital regulator to set safety standards, a government official said.

Its introduction in parliament comes weeks after families affected by one of the country’s worst mass shootings sued OpenAI , alleging that the company knew that the alleged killer had been planning the attack on ChatGPT but did not warn the police.

Australia became the first country to ban social media for children under 16 in December. A month after its law was introduced, social media companies collectively deactivated the accounts of nearly 5 million teenagers.

France, Denmark and Poland are also considering tightening rules around social media use for children, while Greece in April announced that it would ban access for those under the age of 15 from January 2027.

Canadian government officials in a technical briefing said it could take a year for the bill to pass and 18 months to set up the digital regulator once it does.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has a slim majority in Parliament, which is due to break for summer recess soon.

In its proposal for Bill C-34, the government said that apart from individual behaviour, online harms “are also shaped by how digital services are designed and operated. Features such as algorithmic recommendation systems, engagement-based feeds, autoplay, and endless scrolling can amplify harmful content and increase exposure, particularly for young users.”