The Canadian government wants to introduce a minimum age for creating social media accounts. A bill by Minister of Culture Marc Miller shows that this limit would be 16 years old.
“Child safety should not be an afterthought. We all know that harmful content online can have very serious consequences,” Miller said.
If the ban were to actually come into effect, Canada would join a growing list of countries with similar legislation. Strict rules already exist in Australia, Brazil and Indonesia. In the US, Meta (in New Mexico) and Meta and Google (in California) recently lost lawsuits brought by young social media users who felt that as minors they were not sufficiently protected from harmful content and online abuse.
Several European countries are also examining whether a ban should be introduced for young people, or whether existing rules should be tightened.
Since April, the Belgian region of Flanders has had a decree ban on ‘harmful social media’ for children under the age of 13.