With the first reading completed on June 10, 2026 in the House of Commons, Bill C34, the Safe Social Media Act, is on track to become a reality in Canada. What is C34 and how will it affect you? The purpose of Bill C-34 is to provide a framework to improve overall online safety and ensure transparency and accountability among digital services and providers. Through the creation of a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada, the goal is to ensure that children and youth experience less harm online. Ultimately, this new bill is setting safety requirements for social media services and AI chatbot services. The consequences of non-compliance with the bill are penalties of 3% of a company's gross global revenue or $10 million Canadian dollar, whichever is greater in dollar value. For more information about this bill, please visit the Government of Canada website.
What does bill C34 entails?
- Social media services and AI chatbot services have the duty to ensure that certain content is not accessible to children and youth: contents that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor; and (2) intimate content communicated without consent including deepfake sexual images.
- Social media services and AI chatbot services have the duty to mitigate the risk that users will be exposed to harmful content, apply labels to synthetically generated content, and provide clear and accessible ways to flag harmful content and block other users.
- All AI chatbot services must mitigate the risk of the chatbot communicating harmful content; implement emergency measures in crisis situations; and mitigate the risk that the chatbot will engage in harmful behaviour.
- All regulated services are required to publish transparency reports, called Digital Safety Plans, detailing how they have met their obligations under the Act.
- For social media services, the government plans to implement a minimum age of 16 years old for account holders; exceptions can be made if social media services establish sufficient safeguards for children on their platform.
What's next with the bill?
Undoubtedly, the bill will have to go through all of its readings to become law. Many critics and news articles have voiced various opinions on this bill. A Tech-Insider article points out that Canada is following Australia's social media ban for those under the age of 16, and since the launch of this law in the summer of 2025, a recent survey conducted by the Australian government in March 2026 showed that 70% of surveyed children were still on social media. The question of how this bill will keep big data companies accountable is still being asked.
Resources for Parents
It is difficult to set media boundaries when technologies are so accessible to children of all ages. Here are some additional resources that can help parents determine the best course of action for their household.
- Mediasmarts.ca (This site offers various digital media literacy toolkits as well as a dedicated page for parents)
- Common Sense Media (Although it is a US-based nonprofit, it offers excellent parent-focused articles and tools to help support children's safety and well-being in the digital AI era).
- the Dais (Operated by Toronto Metropolitan University, it leads a researched-based campaign advocating for phone-free classrooms. Its educators' toolkits can also be applied by parents).
- Hoopla through the Markham Public Library website (Turn on Kids mode and your children can enjoy free movies, TV shows, comics, e-books, e-audiobooks and more)
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