Will the online harms bill ban kids from social media? Maybe.

OTTAWA — As other countries move toward banning social media use for some teens, the Liberal government has confirmed it’s working on new legislation to address online harms.

So could Canada follow Australia and implement a social media ban? Here’s what we know:

What are the rules in place now for kids under 13?

Canada has no social media ban for kids, though the terms of service for major social platforms say users have to be at least 13 years old.

“It’s not particularly meaningfully enforced by the platforms,” said Taylor Owen, founding director of the centre for media, technology and democracy at McGill University.

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A spokesperson for Canadian Heritage said in a statement that “age standards are set by the companies themselves and are commonly linked to international data protection frameworks, not to Canadian statute.”

Is Canada considering a ban for kids under 14?

The Globe and Mail reported last week the government had drafted a plan for a social media ban for children under 14 years old.

Ottawa hasn’t confirmed it’s considering a ban, but has also not ruled it out. Culture Minister Marc Miller, who is in charge of the new online harms bill, told reporters on Parliament Hill Monday nothing has been decided.

“I’m not going to speculate any further. We haven’t landed on anything yet,” Miller said.

What have the Liberals previously done, or tried to do, to address online harms?

In 2024, the Liberals introduced the online harms act. It would have required social media companies to explain how they plan to reduce the risks their platforms pose to users, and imposed on them a duty to protect children.

The bill would have also imposed a 24-hour takedown provision for content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and for intimate content shared without consent, including deepfakes.

It would also have created a digital safety commission to administer and enforce the legislation, and tasked an ombudsperson with supporting social media users.

The bill never became law before the 2025 election was called. Under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberals signalled they would not bring the bill back in the same form, but would instead tackle aspects of online harms in other legislation.

They’re going ahead with those separate efforts, with a justice bill that would criminalize non-consensual intimate nude deepfakes and an upcoming privacy bill that could include a right to delete deepfakes.

On Friday, AI Minister Evan Solomon confirmed Miller was also working on additional online harms legislation.

What could that bill look like?

Advocates for women and children have called for the government to bring back what the Liberals previously proposed in the 2024 bill.

The government is not specifying what’s under consideration. A spokesperson for Miller didn’t answer questions about whether the government is considering bringing back its previous proposals or considering other options.

Speaking to reporters, Miller said the objective would be to protect children “first and foremost,” but also signalled the legislation could be broader in scope than just a ban applying to children.

“There’s no one single simple fix or one simple instrument that will deal with everything effectively. It has to be a combination of things that make sense, and properly administered,” he said.

“There are large swaths of society that want to see principally their kids protected but also people … including women, racialized minorities, people that are a little more vulnerable.”

What about AI chatbots?

Even since the previous bill was introduced in 2024, technology has changed the online harms landscape.

Concerns about safety of AI chatbots have intensified, with cases emerging of the technology causing psychosis and deaths. Lawsuits are underway in the United States following the suicides of teenagers who were using chatbots.

In the fall, the AI minister said his upcoming privacy bill could include age restrictions on access to AI chatbots to protect children.

Since then, the use of Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot to create sexualized deepfakes disseminated on his X platform has drawn global condemnation.

“Chatbots must be added to this legislation. I think it’s a very discrete and current risk, in particular to children, that companies need to be managing and this is the appropriate place to deal with it,” Emily Laidlaw, a Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary said.

Laidlaw and Owen were both part of an expert group the Liberals appointed to help them develop the 2024 bill, after the government’s earlier proposals drew controversy.

Owen, who was also part of the “task force” appointed by Solomon to advise him on updating the national AI strategy, said including chatbots in the online harms bill was one of his main recommendations.

“I don’t think they can have an AI adoption strategy as a government without taking consumer safety seriously. And the main source of consumer safety harm are particular chatbots aimed at kids,” Owen said.

He said tabling a bill that covers only social media and excludes chatbots would be “missing where the public mood is right now and the public concern.”

Why is there so much talk about a social media ban?

“It’s one of those policy ideas that is just trending right now,” said Laidlaw.

Australia was the first country to implement a ban for kids under 16 in December. The British government has launched a consultation on a potential ban for kids under 16 and France is in the process of passing a bill that would ban social media for kids under 15.

Owen said that implementing a ban on its own would be a bad idea. “The fact that we’re even considering banning an entire generation from the tools that they’ve … embedded in their lives for so many years shows how bad this has become,” he said.

Laidlaw noted that countries considering a ban already have strong online harms laws in place.

“Australia is different in the extent that they had a decade of experience with an e-safety commissioner whose role was devoted to improving the safety of kids and … the wider population online before they then layered on top of it a social media ban,” Laidlaw said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2026.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press