Four Legal Takeaways from the Proposed Canadian Social Media Legislation

On June 10, 2026, the federal government introduced Bill C-34, also known as the Safe Social Media Act. The proposed legislation represents a sweeping effort to regulate social media platforms, chatbot services and other online services in Canada, with a particular focus on the protection of children (including proposed minimum age requirements). It includes the creation of a new regulator that will be empowered to impose large penalties and make binding orders.

Below are four key legal takeaways that interested stakeholders – especially technology companies and online service operators – should be aware of as this bill progresses through Parliament.

1. The proposed legislation applies to a broad range of (still to be specified) online services, and focuses particularly on “harmful content” 

Bill C-34 includes obligations applicable to operators of a “regulated social media service”, “regulated chatbot service”, and “regulated online service”. Each of those services will be further defined in future regulations, with reference to their numbers of users, types of online services available, and any other feature that may be prescribed by regulation. However, certain online service functions are not captured by the legislation, such as those that do not allow users to communicate content to the public and those that involve merely private messaging.

Many (but not all) of the substantive obligations imposed by the bill relate to “harmful content,” which captures:

For regulated chatbot services, Bill C-34 also targets “harmful behaviour”, including deceptively posing as a human, impersonating licensed professionals to give advice, using manipulative engagement techniques to encourage emotional attachment that may cause social withdrawal, and encouraging self-harm, suicide or violent acts.

Bill C-34 requires regulated social media service operators to implement adequate age-verification or age-estimation measures designed to prevent persons under 16 from having an account with, or be otherwise registered with, the service. Adequate measures must be effective and only collect and use personal information for age-verification or age-estimation purposes; provide for the protection of personal information while it is used for such purposes and its destruction thereafter; and comply with any other requirement specified in future regulations.

The minimum age provisions of the proposed legislation are not limited to “harmful content” or “harmful behaviour” – they apply to “every regulated social media service” to be specified in future regulations. Notably, they do not currently apply to chatbot service operators.

Social media service operators may apply to a new regulatory agency, the Digital Safety Commission (discussed below), for an exemption from minimum age regulations. To obtain such an exemption, operators will need to demonstrate the implementation of adequate safeguards for the protection of children according to criteria that may be established by regulation.

3. The proposed legislation establishes new legal duties for online service operators

Bill C-34 introduces four core new legal duties on operators of regulated services:

The proposed legislation would establish the Digital Safety Commission of Canada – a new regulatory body with broad powers. The Commission’s mandate is to promote online safety in Canada and reduce harm caused by harmful online content, including through administering and enforcing the to-be-enacted Digital Safety Act, investigating complaints, and gathering information with respect to online safety issues.

The Commission would have significant enforcement tools at its disposal, including the ability to:

Overall

A central tension in Bill C-34 is the need to balance two objectives: protecting children through age-verification or age-estimation measures while preserving users’ privacy rights. The bill directs the Commission, when making regulations and issuing guidelines, to consider privacy rights, freedom of expression and equality rights. However, many key details remain to be addressed through future regulations, leaving significant discretion over how this balance will be struck in practice.

More broadly, given that the contours of many obligations proposed by Bill C-34 – including those discussed above, design features, content moderation measures, and digital safety plan requirements – will ultimately be determined by regulation, the practical compliance burden on operators remains to be seen and will need to be closely monitored by affected stakeholders.