{"id":83174,"date":"2026-06-11T00:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/83174\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T00:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:56:20","slug":"canada-moves-to-ban-social-media-accounts-children-under-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/83174\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada moves to ban social media accounts children under 16"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Canada introduced legislation on Wednesday that could bar children younger than 16 from having social media accounts unless the companies show they can make their platforms safe. <\/p>\n

Canada is joining a growing global effort<\/a> to tighten safety protections. Canadian government officials said social media platforms can obtain an exemption if they have put in place sufficient safeguards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are failing our children. Enough is enough,\u201d Marc Miller, Canada\u2019s culture minister, said. \u201cWe need basic protection in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislation covers seven types of harmful content including content that induces children to harm themselves, content that incites violence and foments hatred and non-consensual intimate images. <\/p>\n

A new regulator, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, will be created. Criteria for what exemptions would look like will be announced at a later date. Miller said setting up the regulator could take up to 18 months. <\/p>\n

Miller said platforms will need to prove they are safe. Age verification will also be established. <\/p>\n

Countries including Australia,<\/a>Brazil<\/a> and Indonesia<\/a> have introduced or announced age-based restrictions or requirements for children\u2019s access to social media. Others including Britain, France, Spain, Denmark,<\/a> Thailand and South Korea are studying or developing similar approaches.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Canada's<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Platforms in Canada that offer adult content would not be able to obtain an exemption.<\/p>\n

The legislation would also regulate the companies behind artificial intelligence chatbots by imposing on them a duty to act responsibly through measures such as crisis intervention protocols.<\/p>\n

In Australia, social media companies have revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children since the country banned use of the platforms<\/a> by those under 16, officials said. The law provoked intense debate<\/a> in Australia about technology use, privacy, child safety and mental health and has prompted other countries to consider similar measures.<\/p>\n

A Canadian government official, in a briefing with journalists, said authorities will try to learn lessons from Australia.<\/p>\n

Lianna McDonald, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, applauded the move, noting sextortion on social media is up dramatically. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Canada introduced legislation on Wednesday that could bar children younger than 16 from having social…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[367,3519,17,591,7204,32527,592,1802,226,8210,29062,8067,1194,32525,588,236,32526,403,218],"class_list":["post-83174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-australia","tag-brazil","tag-canada","tag-canada-government","tag-children","tag-denmark-government","tag-general-news","tag-legislation","tag-lifestyle","tag-marc-miller","tag-online-safety","tag-privacy","tag-social-media","tag-south-korea-government","tag-spain","tag-technology","tag-thailand-government","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}