Canada has introduced Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, which aims to make social media and AI chatbots safer for children and enhance accountability on digital platforms.

In 2019, 1 in 4 young people aged 12-17 years reported experiencing cyberbullying in the previous year, according to federal government data. Young people who experience online victimization are significantly more likely to report poor mental health outcomes, including suicidal ideation. Police-reported incidents of online child sexual abuse and exploitation have increased significantly in recent years, reflecting rising prevalence and evolving digital risks. New technologies, including AI, are changing how harmful content is created, amplified, and experienced online.

“Social media platforms and AI chatbots are designed to capture attention,” Marjorie Michel, Canada’s minister of health, said in a statement. “They do not support healthy childhood development and have become a source of anxiety, isolation, depression, and a range of other mental health challenges for many young Canadians. The healthy development of our children begins with their physical and mental well-being, which is grounded in strong and healthy social connections. This legislation will provide a safer environment for young Canadians and empower them to connect in person, build friendships, focus in school, and learn real-world skills so they can thrive.”

Measures to Reduce Potential Harm

The proposed legislation is intended to make online services more transparent and accountable by introducing new safety requirements. One of the measures prevents children younger than 16 years from having social media accounts but provides a pathway for social media services to seek exemptions if they can demonstrate that they have implemented sufficient safeguards for children.

Under what the act calls the duty to act responsibly, a core statutory requirement of the act, regulated services must comply with the following stipulations:

• Identify risks of harm on their platforms, and label synthetically generated content, depending on the type of service
• Make user guidelines accessible
• Provide tools such as blocking and flagging
• Submit publicly disclosed digital safety plans
• Comply with oversight from an independent regulator

AI chatbot services will be required to mitigate the risk that the chatbot will communicate harmful content and engage in harmful behavior. Chatbots must also be transparent regarding their reporting thresholds in crisis situations, such as when a user intends to harm themselves or another person.

“What I’ve been hearing a lot from other doctors is that they’re seeing an increasing incidence of issues in young people related to social media access,” Bolu Ogunyemi, MD, president of the Canadian Medical Association, told Medscape News Canada.

“This includes inattention due to mood disorders, low self-esteem, and reduction in sleep due to social media scrolling just before bedtime. Educators, psychologists, and researchers are also seeing these effects. It’s not about banning social media. It’s about putting the onus on social media vendors to support people in using it responsibly without intentionally having the algorithms and technology cause them to be addicted to online platforms. We hope to encourage folks to interact and chat in person and use social media if the vendors can prove its use in a safe way.”

The Australian Model

Amori Mikami, PhD, professor of psychology at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, noted that much about the act remains unknown. For example, the safeguards that companies must implement to gain exemptions are unclear. “This is an important point because in terms of the act’s practical effects, we don’t know what the safeguards are supposed to be preventing or whether they’ll be successful in doing so such that exemptions will be warranted,” she explained.

In 2024, Australia introduced the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill prohibiting people younger than 16 years from holding an account on certain social media platforms. The act allows the Australian government to determine which social media platforms must ban age-restricted users. In 2025, the Australian government implemented an age-restricted ban on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, X, Threads, Twitch, Kick, and YouTube, with the possibility that more platforms may be added.

Research published on June 24 in The BMJ raises questions about the efficacy of Australia’s restrictions, however. A survey of 408 Australian adolescents aged 12-17 years found that more than 85% of participants younger than 16 years reported using restricted social media platforms, mostly through their own accounts, after the ban took effect. The small sample size, the reliance on self-reported outcomes, and the observational character of the study suggest that the findings should be interpreted with caution, however.

Deepfakes, a type of media that uses AI to depict real or fictional people, represent a particular danger to youth because it’s often pornographic or created for harmful purposes, such as encouraging self-harm, according to Mikami. “With the new act in Canada, social media firms are being asked to monitor and try to prevent self-harm such as suicide attempts, as opposed to simply saying, ‘We can’t control the content users post.’ This type of harm is perhaps one motivation behind Australia’s blanket ban, which addresses excessive doomscrolling. But what safeguards could a company implement to try to stop that?”

The United Kingdom recently finalized a social media ban, and Indonesia, France, and other European countries are monitoring the issue, Emma Duerden, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience and Learning Disorders at Western University in London, Ontario, told Medscape News Canada. “We’re looking at the impact of social media on children’s mental health, brain development, and how they’re doing at school,” she said. “We’ve published studies demonstrating that screen time in young children is associated with decreases in brain volume and language centers, which are linked to worse language outcomes. We studied screen time in school-age children and found that it was associated with diminished sleep, leading to anxiety and depression.”

“We’re seeing teens and young adults at the university on a daily basis who have significant mental health concerns at school, regarding cyberbullying and exposure to graphic violence online,” Duerden concluded.

Ogunyemi, Mikami, and Duerden reported no relevant financial relationships.

Evra Taylor is a widely published freelance medical writer and reporter with 20 years’ experience covering a broad range of therapeutic sectors, including family health, cardiology, psychiatry, ophthalmology, and dermatology.