Highlights from Bill C-34, the proposed Safe Social Media Act

On this page

• Placing responsibility on digital services
• Making the internet safer for children and families
• New rules for digital services
• Digital Safety Commission
• Respecting freedom of expression
• Protecting privacy
• International and broader policy context

Placing responsibility on digital services

Online safety is a systemic issue that can be directly influenced by digital services. Harmful content is allowed to spread through algorithms that amplify and recommend it. Since digital services design these systems, they should be responsible for the risks they pose. The Safe Social Media Act would place the responsibility on regulated services to reduce the distribution of harmful content and lower the risk to the public.

Making the internet safer for children and families

Digital services host a wide range of content, some of which could be harmful to children. This includes content used to bully a child, content that encourages self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders, and child sexual abuse material. Some internet users may also come across content aiming to recruit people into terrorism or violent extremism.

The Safe Social Media Act would require regulated social media and chatbot services to take steps to protect children, such as by implementing age-appropriate design features. The law wouldn’t just apply to today’s digital services. If new online services in the future present a significant risk of harm to children, the regime’s obligations regarding the protection of children could be expanded to cover those services through a process that includes public consultation.

Certain regulated social media services will also be required to prevent users under 16 from having accounts. However, these services could apply for an exemption from the minimum age requirement if they can demonstrate that their product is safe for children.

New rules for digital services

At the heart of the Safe Social Media Act are three duties and transparency requirements for regulated services to follow.

Duty to act responsibly

Applied to social media services

Regulated social media services would have to take steps to lower the risk of exposure to users of content in seven categories. This includes:

• intimate content communicated without consent (this could include revenge porn or sexualized deepfakes);
• content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor (this could include child sexual abuse material);
• content that induces a child to harm themselves (this could include content encouraging eating disorders or suicide);
• content used to bully a child;
• content that foments hatred;
• content that incites violence; and
• terrorism or violent extremism content (this could include content encouraging others to commit or facilitate an act of terrorism or violent extremism).

Social media services can choose how to do this: limiting sharing, enabling warnings and flagging are some examples.

Social media services would also need to identify and label certain AI-generated content (such as deepfakes) to the best of their ability, and give users the tools necessary to block users and flag harmful content.

Applied to AI chatbot services

Regulated artificial intelligence chatbot services would have to take steps to lower the risk that the chatbot will communicate harmful content, but they would have additional obligations as well. These services would have to intervene in emergency situations, such as when a user expresses suicidal thoughts, intention to self-harm, or an intention to hurt others. The service would then have to interrupt the conversation, and direct the user to support services that are immediately available and provide human interaction. Chatbot services would also have to lower the risk that the chatbot will engage in specific types of harmful behaviour, such as posing as a human being, posing as a licensed professional and giving advice, using manipulative engagement techniques, or encouraging self-harm, suicide, or the harming of others.

Duty to protect children

All regulated services would need to take steps to make their services safer for children specifically. They would need to have design features respecting the protection of children, which will be outlined by the Digital Safety Commission, and would also need to take steps to reduce risk that children will be exposed to pornographic content on the service. Children under 16 would not be permitted to have accounts on certain social media services, unless the service has received an exemption from the Commission that it meets these obligations.

Duty to make certain content inaccessible

Social media services would need to make two specific types of harmful content inaccessible in Canada: content that sexually victimizes a child or re-victimizes a survivor, and intimate content communicated without consent. These two categories represent some of the most harmful content online and would have to be made inaccessible within 24 hours of it being identified by the platform or flagged by a user, while the platform must follow a specific decision process allowing the poster and the flagger to make representations.

Digital Safety Commission

The proposed legislation would create a new independent regulator called the Digital Safety Commission of Canada. This Commission would promote online safety in Canada and contribute to reducing the harms caused to people in Canada from harmful content online.

The new Digital Safety Commission would:

• Administer and enforce the Act, for example through the use of compliance orders and monetary penalties;
• Receive complaints when regulated services are not complying with the Act;
• Gather information on online safety;
• Set new standards for online safety through research and educational activities;
• Issue guidelines and codes of conduct for the purposes of the Act; and
• Act as a secondary recourse mechanism for making certain content inaccessible if a user is unsatisfied with the recourse from the platform.

Compliance will be verified by the Commission in various ways including Digital Safety Plans, information gathering, inspections, and investigations.

The Commission would also issue guidelines about when services should notify the RCMP about content that may signal that a person will commit an act that would cause death or serious harm to another person.

Respecting freedom of expression

The Safe Social Media Act would enable people in Canada to participate fully in public discourse and exercise their freedom of expression online without fear.

The Act does not require regulated services to do anything that unreasonably or disproportionately limits users’ expression. Instead, the Act focuses on seven specific types of harmful content, clearly defined to narrowly target online content that causes significant harm to people in Canada.

The Act would not require regulated services to proactively monitor or remove all harmful content. Regulated services would need to put in place systems and processes to reduce exposure to specified harms, while also having flexibility in how they meet those obligations. Services would only need to remove access to the most harmful content - that which sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent. Even in these cases, there would be a process to have the decision reconsidered upon

In addition, all regulations and guidelines that the Commission issues must consider freedom of expression of users.

Protecting privacy

Private messaging would be excluded from the scope of the Safe Social Media Act, in order to better preserve privacy. While harms are present in private messaging features and services, the Act would focus on services where content can spread publicly and quickly at scale.

International and broader policy context

The Safe Social Media Act aligns with existing laws in other countries and jurisdictions like the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Australia, that require digital services to address the risks their services can pose to users. Like these countries, Canada’s Safe Social Media Act would put the responsibility on these services to assess risks, use safety measures, as well as report on the progress of implementing them, and have independent oversight.

Canada’s law would reflect international best practices, adapted to Canadian values and legal protections. It would also address new risks from AI tools such as chatbots and synthetic content. The law would treat all regulated services equally, regardless of where they are based. It would be flexible to allow for ongoing innovation and changing technologies.