Federal Liberals voted in favour of setting 16 as the age of majority for Canadians to be able to use social media accounts.
Party grassroots passed a non-binding resolution Saturday morning for the restriction and to place the onus on social media companies to enforce it.
Quebec MP Rachel Bendayan, who presented the idea to her caucus and championed it at the convention, said prolonged social media use can be harmful to the mental health of young Canadians.
She said social media companies need to be more accountable and stop allowing young children to use technologies designed to be addictive.
Bendayan also said she was astonished by how many youth she personally spoke with who support the idea.
“I was very surprised to see so many teenagers and people within the age group I was targeting tell me they were in favour of this resolution, in part because they felt they have no choice but to be on social media,” she told reporters after the vote.
“So it’s not a ban for a ban’s sake. It’s something that would change the way society operates at the moment.”
The resolution sets out party policy, but because it’s not binding on the governing party, it won’t directly lead to a ban.
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Carter Scott, a 17-year-old Liberal attending his first convention, said he’s frustrated that young people didn’t get a chance to chime into the debate on the convention floor this weekend.
And he says he doesn’t trust the social media platforms to handle the data used to verify a person’s age, such as government IDs or facial recognition.
“There has been a significant risk and significant concerns where this policy has been introduced is if there’s been a breach — as is likely — of the data, where thousands of Canadians — young people, seniors, whoever — could have their data leaked,” Scott said.
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Bendayan said this is just the start of a wider conversation about the policy position, including ensuring it does not produce privacy risks. She said Canadians should hear more from young people, teachers, psychologists and medical experts about the issue.
“We’re in the early stages of having this debate and what today did was kick off what I hope will be a national conversation.”
An Angus Reid poll from March suggested widespread support for the idea.
The polling agency found as much as three-quarters of Canadians support a full ban on social media use for Canadians under the age of 16. Because it was an online survey and not a probability telephone sample, it does not carry a margin of error.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said last month that the idea “merits an open and considered debate in Canada,” although he does not have a settled view on it yet and said there were good points on both sides.
Australia became the first country last December to create a law enforcing age limits on accounts, and introduced fines for social media companies found non-compliant.
The Liberals also adopted a similar resolution on Saturday to set age restrictions for chat bots that run on artificial intelligence over similar concerns about the technology affecting the mental health of youth.
It says the government should limit use of “all AI chatbots and other potentially harmful forms of AI interaction” to Canadians over the age of 16.
That includes popular software such as ChatGPT that people now commonly turn to for advice or even have full conversations with.
bruh
“Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help”… well, Y’know how that is going to turn out.
Wow I did not realize 1984 was an almanac.
Amazing how Canadians continue to want the government to mange your children for you. Keep voting liberal and you will fall further into being a communist state.
I basically make about $8,000-$12,000 a month online. It’s enough to comfortably replace my old jobs income, especially considering I only work about 10-13 hours a week from home. I was amazed how easy it was after I tried it below
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Bendayan pitchforked Manchester university scientists for spending 3 years to research social media affects on 25000 kids.
You should include that during debate a young raised AI glasses used by visually impaired youth and paid by every provincial disability program were shown and Bendayan was explicitly ok with banning disability aids. AI glasses run on ChatGPT.
This should include no person or organization from sharing photos or information too. Any adult can post a childs picture and share too much. This would help protect kids more.
So anyone over the age of 16 will have to provide proof of age and identity to use social media.
And that will make it so much easier to track and punish people who post anything that goes against the Liberal’s ideology …. I mean the ‘Online Harms Bill.’
But remember… it’s all about the children…
Fascism… one policy at time. Libtarded mentality. You mouth breathers just can’t figure it out. You’re blinded by suicidal empathy.
I favor the age to be 14 and over as the age to be able to use social media accounts
Can’t watch YTube but can change life altering hormones.
About time
Adults shouldn’t be on it either. It is making people mental and Canadians already are propagandized enough.
Next, ban Conservatives from social media
Why is it the only thing Liberals do is ban things, you’d think with that name they’d actually allow more
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its not about the children, its the first step to digitel ID acceptance. want internet ID, want to use an app ID, need healthcare ID, your phone will be your wallet and you will happy…….
This decision should rest with parents. Parents can chose not to give their child a device.
HOW DO THEY KNOW IF THE KID IS REALLY OVER 16?
As a high school teacher in Ontario, I believe this is a necessary step, but that it doesn’t go far enough. Young people are cognitively paralyzed by devices that are highly addictive. The agree should be 19 and it should not be possible for a parent to finance a smartphone contact on behalf of their children.
Any “nanny-state” counter arguments fail to recognize that social media and smartphones are deliberately designed to be highly addictive, and that young people’s freedoms are curtailed by those addictive mechanisms. Children are not free to opt-out, they are trapped by the habits that form around their devices.
What social media needs is a complete ban on algorithm driven content. Or at least a first step of forcing full transparency on how a platform algorithm works, which ideally would force them to remove the parts that push rage and fear based content that they’ve determined helps their profits at the expense of destroying humanity.
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Children turn 16 at different times of the school year. This, some in the same grade will have access but others will not. Obvious solution: make the rule for a given grade, such as third year of secondary school. Then all the kids gain access at the same time, not differentially over a full school year. Duh!
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Social media just makes you 20% dumber.
Lol this is so silly. Kids should be able to go on social media if their parents are fine with it. I think if anything, parents need to do their jobs more and stop expecting society to raise them for them. Closing youth off to information is not a good solution at all.
Can we ban carney the con man from Canada?
It’s not about the youth or the children. This is about enforcing adults verify their identity to access social media. Everything you say and do on the internet can and will be used against you.
Get rid of social media altogether! It’s nothing but garbage!
Lmao
Only idiots think they will keep.kids off social media
Another stupid idea that the Liberals have voted for. It is totally unenforceable. It can lead to problems. Just like their gun control that nobody believes in.