Introducing C-34 – Safe Social Media Act
What You Need to Know
As online harms intensify, children are particularly at risk. To better protect them, the government has introduced the Safe Social Media Act, which will make social media services and AI chatbot services safer for children.
When implemented, the Safe Social Media Act will require social media services and AI chatbots services to identify, mitigate, and address risks of harm on their platforms, and to develop services that are safe by design and put the safety of children first.
The framework will introduce new responsibilities for platforms, through three core duties: the Duty to Act Responsibly, the Duty to Protect Children, and the Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible.
The proposed legislation will include a minimum age restriction preventing Canadians under the age of 16 from having accounts on social media services, while providing a pathway for social media platforms to seek an exemption if they can demonstrate that they have put in place a sufficient set of protections for children.
Social media services will be required to label synthetic content, make user guidelines accessible, provide tools like blocking and flagging, and rapidly remove content that sexually victimizes a child, revictimizes a survivor, or involves the non-consensual sharing of intimate content, including sexually explicit deepfakes.
AI chatbot services will be required to mitigate content that could harm children and to have clear protocols in place when a user expresses an intention to harm themselves or others.
Both social media services and AI chatbot services will be required to be transparent and accountable to Canadians and to publish digital safety plans.
This law is about holding platforms accountable and ensuring they have basic protections in place to keep children safe online, reduce harm before it happens, and ensure that digital spaces are safe by design – all while protecting the privacy of Canadians.
