Catharine Tunney , CBC News : Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, would force social media services — defined as traditional social media platforms, live-streaming services and adult content services focused on user-shared content — to restrict accounts for children under 16 years old. However, services could seek an exemption if they implement what officials briefing reporters called adequate safeguards to protect children. The exemption wouldn’t apply to platforms offering adult content services. The “adequate safeguards” are not yet defined and, it turns out, are far from the only things to be determined. It was striking to read the text of the bill and come across so many key pieces punted to a later date or committee. Some of these policies, for example, might only apply to services over some number of users, but that cut-off is to be established later. There is a whole committee, the Digital Safety Commission, with “three to five full-time members” but few specific details. Even things which appear to be strictly defined — removing CSAM within twenty-four hours of being flagged by a user — might be different “if a period of a different length is provided for by regulations”. Michael Geist : Bill C-34 suggests the government absorbed only part of the lesson. The Criminal Code and Human Rights Act provisions are gone, but in their place the government has thrown in everything else: the original Online Harms Act platform duties, an under-16 social media ban backed by mandated age verification, Bill S-209’s pornography age verification requirements, a new AI chatbot regulatory regime, and sweeping powers for a Digital Safety Commission that will write the rules, enforce them, and decide which platforms escape the ban restriction. It is an everything-all-at-once approach in which nearly every key component, including which services face the restriction, how age gets verified, which AI systems are covered, and what standards govern exemptions, is left to regulations that do not yet exist. Will Adams , the Provincial Times : The internet has plenty of problems that deserve attention. Predators exist. Addiction is real. Platforms optimize for engagement over well-being. None of those facts requires the rest of us to accept a system of digital ID that will follow every user who wants to comment on the news or express their position on whatever. There is the tiniest, faintest shred of hope in that some platforms implementing “adequate safeguards” will not actually need to verify ages at all. I am not banking on that, to be clear, but it is at least a notion of something that could be promising. Then again, we have no idea about what that means or, in fact, any material policies in this bill. All we have is this framework, and it sucks. ⌥ Permalink