Discussion Banning social media for kids

SharonM · 2026-06-13T14:44:24-0400

While banning social media for kids might seem like a good move it is a cover for massive surveillance and control
This Bill was just introduced on June 10, 2026. Now the next step is for the MPs to put it through “Second Reading”.
Summarized here:

a standing federal body that can make speech vanish on suspicion, with no court and no clock running against it, holding a definition of harmful it gets to write for itself.
AND

a verification regime that puts every adult’s ID or face on file as the toll for logging on. Protecting kids is the line on the label. The capabilities the bill actually builds will still be sitting there long after this government has gone looking for its next cause.

Key issues of concern:

Creation of a Digital Safety Commission of Canada. “Cabinet appoints its three to five members. The same body writes the rules, runs the inspections, hears the complaints, and hands out the fines, which is a regulator and a courtroom folded into one office that answers to no voter.”

Seven categories of “harmful content” but few details. Among them “content used to bully a child” and “content that foments hatred.” But “the people
drawing the line day to day are the platforms, working from rules the Commission can rewrite whenever it wants. The edge of what a Canadian is allowed to say can shift without anyone in Parliament casting a vote.”

Post frozen within 24 hours with no recourse.

In order to prove people are over 16 to access social media, they will lkely need to allow access to their biometrics (face scans) or some form of ID. So what is being sold as protective to children becomes the route through which to enact a surveillance/control grid on adults using continuous checking.
The government is turning the act of keeping people from speaking online over to private corporations, an in a direct way of doing it itself.

To steer people away from suicidal ideation to mental health support (which seems like a noble goal) also means enabling the technology to read/scan/review EVERY message typed, a clear example of corporate/government overreach into citizen privacy,

Exorbitant penalties of $10 million or 3 percent of global revenue and criminal fines on indictment go to the greater of $20 million or 5 percent means “companies will over-censor on reflex without the government ever issuing an order.”

Through the government’s claim that platforms must be “responsible for addressing harm before it occurs,” and the design is plain enough. “Act against the speech that has not happened, on the theory that it might. Most legal systems wait for the act. This one would prefer not to.”

Canada’s Bill C-34 Would Require ID or Face Scan to Use Social Media

Canada’s long-anticipated and dreaded Bill C-34 arrived on June 10 with the usual fanfare about protecting children.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

See how the US Internet Privacy Watchdog RECLAIM THE NET analyzes it below.

Straight copy from https://reclaimthenet.org/bill-c-34-canadas-new-law-wants-your-id-or-your-face-to-use-social-media

Discussion Banning social media for kids

SharonM

Well-known member