Should Canada introduce a social media ban for children younger than 16 years of age?

Poll: Kids social media ban

Photo: The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

Carol Todd holds a photo of her late teenage daughter Amanda Todd, who died by suicide in 2012, and the necklace she was wearing in the school photo, outside B.C. Supreme Court after sentencing for the Dutch man who was accused of extorting and harassing her daughter, in New Westminster, B.C., on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022.

A ban on social media for children would need oversight and monitoring of the tech industry in order to work, online safety advocate Carol Todd told members of Parliament Tuesday.

"If we're going to encourage and create a social media … ban in Canada, we have to ensure that there are safety designs to monitor it, to oversee it," said Todd, whose daughter Amanda died by suicide in 2012 after experiencing online sextortion.

"Oversight is a big part of … when the government brings in an online safety act. Because if we don't, who is going to oversee that things are being done properly with the tech industry?"

Todd appeared before a Parliamentary committee studying the effects of influencers and social media content on children and adolescents.

Both Todd and Sara Austin, founder of Children First Canada, urged MPs to quickly pass an online safety bill.

"While Parliament studies, platforms profit, and while committees debate, kids pay the price. Every day of delay costs children something they cannot get back — a day of their childhood," Austin said.

The Liberal government recently confirmed it’s working on a bill to address online harms, but has not said if it will ban social media for youth. The Liberals previously proposed an online harms bill in 2024 but it never became law.

Advocates and experts have called on the government to bring back the provisions in that bill.

The online harms act would have required social media companies to explain how they plan to reduce the risks their platforms pose to users, and would have imposed on them a duty to protect children.

It also would have introduced a 24-hour takedown provision for content that sexually victimizes a child, and would have created a digital safety commission to administer and enforce the legislation.

Australia became the first country to implement a social media ban for kids under 16 in December, and Spain said Tuesday it will implement a similar ban. The British government has launched a consultation on a potential ban for kids under 16 and France is in the process of passing a bill that would ban social media for kids under 15.

In a series of meetings, the heritage committee has heard from experts and advocates warning that children face the threat of sexual exploitation online and their time is increasingly being shaped by influencers and algorithms that determine what content they see.

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