A recent Angus Reid survey found that 75% of respondents support a full ban on social media for children under 16. Only 18% were opposed, and 7% were unsure. Yet 74% also agree that “parents, not government, should be primarily responsible for regulating teens’ social media use.”

A social media ban for young people is a key feature of Bill C-34, the federal government’s Safe Social Media Act. But that’s not all Bill C-34 does. The bill would also implement age-verification for pornography and address harmful content online more broadly.

It would also require those who run online services to abide by four duties.

Duty to Protect Children

The first duty listed for operators of online services is a duty to protect children. Specifically, Bill C-34 would implement age-verification for any site where the operator has reasonable grounds to suspect the site provides access to pornography. This requirement applies for all regulated online services, including social media and chatbots.

ARPA Canada has been advocating for age verification for pornography for years, and it is good to see the government acknowledge the need for it through Bill C-34.

The bill would also require age-verification for anyone using a regulated social media service. It would ban anyone under sixteen from having a social media account. This prohibition is driven by many factors, including addiction, mental health, and cyberbullying.

But the social media ban itself will also help prevent children from exposure to pornography. After all, 8 of the top 10 sources where young people see pornography are social media or networking sites.

Duty to Act Responsibly – Social Media

The second duty is the duty to act responsibly. For social media services, this includes a responsibility to mitigate the risk of exposure to “harmful content.” The seven categories of “harmful content” are as follows:

• Intimate content communicated without consent;
• Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor;
• Content that induces a child to harm themselves;
• Content used to bully a child;
• Content that foments hatred;
• Content that incites violence; and
• Terrorism or violent extremism content.

Each of these categories is further defined in the bill. Christians should support the government taking steps to prevent the first two harms of sharing intimate content without consent and content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor. Both are illegal in Canada and should not be available online. As we’ve said many times before, Canada is far too lenient when it comes to pornography.

Likewise, we think that censoring the last two categories – content that incites violence or terrorism – is also justified. Restraining unlawful violence and speech that calls for such violence is within the government’s God-given jurisdiction.

Content that induces a child to harm himself, or to bully a child

The third category is content that, “given the context in which it is communicated, could cause a child to inflict injury on themselves, to have an eating disorder or to die by suicide.” Likewise, content used to bully a child is content that “is communicated for the purpose of threatening, intimidating or humiliating the child.” Both, in principle, must be prevented.

Where it becomes complicated is in how our society and governments have come to define “harm”. For example, online content that questions or opposes gender ideology may be seen as likely to harm or threaten a child.

Content that foments hatred

Ideological censorship is also a concern for the category “content that foments hatred.” Social media operators may deem something harmful or hateful simply because they disagree with it or want to avoid trouble for not addressing it.  Companies may flag controversial content to avoid potential liability.

According to the bill, content likely to foment hatred means “content that expresses detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.” The bill also clarifies that “content does not express detestation or vilification solely because it expresses disdain or dislike or it discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends.”

This definition sets a lower bar than the criminal law definition of hate speech and could result in censorship from social media platforms and the new Digital Safety Commission. Additionally, “content that foments hatred” will be subject to the views of the Commission and social media companies.  

Measures to “mitigate the risk” of exposure to harmful content are not detailed in the bill, but are supposed to be made through regulations after the bill passes. The bill does note, however, that users of social media must be given tools to block other users and to flag harmful content. Additionally, the bill would require websites to label as synthetic any content produced by electronic or mechanical means, including AI, if it is likely to be mistaken for authentic.

Bill C-34 will not regulate private messaging.

Duty to Act Responsibly – Chatbots

Bill C-34 also addresses some of the challenges of AI chatbots. Operators of chatbots will be required to mitigate the risk that the service will communicate harmful content to a user. This includes mitigating hate speech, which, as discussed above, creates a unique set of challenges and may result in censoring unpopular perspectives. Again, more regulations will come on what that would look like exactly. Chatbots would be required to interrupt an interaction if a user expresses intent to self-harm or commit a criminal act that could cause harm to others. Chatbot services must not pose as human or medical or legal professionals, and they must not encourage self-harm or acts that could cause death or serious bodily harm. Operators would be required to implement tools for users to flag harmful communication.

Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible

This duty applies to pornographic content only, requiring that child pornography and non-consensual pornography must be made inaccessible within 24 hours of being identified. There is no duty in the legislation to remove other “harmful content”, though what an operator must do once harmful content is identified is unclear in the legislation and likely to be addressed in regulations.

Duty to Be Transparent

Finally, regulated services will have a duty to be transparent. They must submit a digital safety plan to the Digital Safety Commission outlining how they will comply with the Safe Social Media Act. That plan must assess the risk of exposure to harmful content on their services, describe how they are trying to mitigate that risk, evaluate its effectiveness, and provide information on flagged and other harmful content on the service. Operators must also make their digital safety plan publicly available.

New Digital Safety Commission of Canada

Bill C-34 would establish a Digital Safety Commission to oversee compliance with the law. The Commission would hold hearings regarding complaints about online operators and their compliance with the law. They could also designate inspectors to verify compliance and issue an order requiring the operator to comply with a specific aspect of the legislation or regulations. Violators would be subject to a financial penalty.

Conclusion

The biggest challenges with Bill C-34 are (a) the potential for ideologically biased interpretations of what constitutes harmful content, especially what may be considered to “foment hatred”, and (b) the extent to which it leaves specifics to regulations (which are not debated or voted on in Parliament but made by the executive branch and the members of the Digital Safety Commission).

What counts as an online service, chatbot, or social media service subject to the law? Wait for the regulations. What design features or measures to mitigate the risk of online harm should be implemented? Wait for regulations. How should companies implement age-verification? You guessed it – regulations. In fact, the bill gives the Commission a list of 31 areas where it can issue regulations, in addition to areas where Cabinet will issue regulations. Of course, regulations can be adopted, changed, or deleted by the stroke of a minister’s or a bureaucrat’s pen.

In principle, various aspects of Bill C-34 are important and commendable. Operators of online services should be held accountable to ensure pornography is not accessible to children. Effective age-verification for pornography must be in place. Age verification for social media may also help prevent children from accessing pornography and other truly damaging content. And the law must be enforced, or it becomes meaningless.

However, the bill raises questions about free speech, especially in how “hatred” will be defined and addressed. And while some regulations may be necessary, the vast number of potential regulations creates a serious lack of clarity about what the law will actually do.

Bill C-34 will not be debated in the House of Commons until the fall, though we expect plenty of public debate about it in the coming months. Stay tuned for more details.