Canada is set to join other countries in restricting social media for children and teenagers under 16. On Wednesday, Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller introduced the two-part Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34), aiming to regulate AI chatbots and curtail ‘harmful content’ online. This is the federal government’s latest attempt to create a legal framework to address the dangers of social media, especially among young users.Bill C-34 would require social media services, including platforms, live-streaming sites, and adult content services, to restrict accounts for children under 16. The proposed legislation would also regulate artificial intelligence chatbot services, such as ChatGPT, and introduce new safety requirements for online platforms. By addressing both traditional social platforms and emerging AI tools, Canada is attempting to stay ahead of technological evolution.While Canada has laws to address harm after it occurs, there is currently little that requires online services to prevent harm in the first place, the statement said. This proposed Act aims to change that by making social media platforms and AI chatbot providers responsible for preventing harm before it occurs.“We’re failing our children. Enough is enough. We need basic protection in place so every child in this country can be safe on the platforms they use every day,” Miller said earlier this week. He also stated that passing this law to address online harms was a priority for the Canadian government because ‘kids are dying’. “Suffice to say, we will take all reasonable measures to make sure kids are safe in this country,” he told reporters.This move mirrors a similar law passed in Australia late last year. Australia remains the only country to have enacted a nationwide law restricting social media access for under-16s. Other countries, including the UK, France, Greece, Spain and Malaysia, have considered, proposed or developed similar measures aimed at improving children’s online safety.In Canada, AI safety has become a pressing issue following the deadly February mass school shooting in British Columbia, where the 18-year-old suspect was revealed to have used ChatGPT to discuss gun violence months before the attack. Eight people, including six young children, were killed.The bill must be passed by Parliament before becoming law. If it is passed, the Canadian legislation would also place responsibility on websites to protect children from harmful content.This bill comes at a time when excessive social media use among children is becoming a growing global concern. A recent study by researchers at the University of Georgia found that regular social media use across early adolescence is associated with poorer reading and vocabulary development over time.“The brain is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more it changes according to how you’re using it. If you think of the Olympics, figure skaters are really good at figure skating because they spend eight hours a day doing it. Their muscles are wired to be figure-skating machines. If kids spend over eight hours a day using social media, that’s what their brains are going to adapt to and be wired for,” Cory Carvalho, lead author of the study, who received his doctorate from the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said. The findings are published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence.