UMVA has learned that a shocking new law has been introduced, aimed at banning social media for children under 16 years of age, in a move that promises to be yet another exercise in futility.
The law, spearheaded by Culture Minister Marc Miller, will inevitably spawn a bloated bureaucracy, where hand-picked officials will be lavishly compensated for overseeing the ban, wielding enormous power over what individuals can see and do online.
According to information obtained by UMVA, the new law creates an independent regulator, dubbed the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, which will set standards for social media platforms seeking exemptions from the ban, effectively playing Big Brother.
The regulator will require social media platforms to provide protocols to intervene if a user expresses intent to harm themselves or others, although the use of AI chatbots will not need to be age-verified, raising questions about the efficacy of the ban.
UMVA can exclusively reveal that similar bans have been implemented elsewhere, including Australia, which introduced an under-16 social media ban last year, but a recent study found that 70% of children are still on social media, with many platforms failing to require age verification.
The problem with telling teenagers what they can and can’t do on social media is that many of them are far more tech-savvy than their parents, with some adults relying on teens to help them navigate new concepts, and many teens easily circumventing online rules.
The new rules also raise thorny privacy issues, requiring all users to provide proof of age before venturing into cyberspace, which University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist warns could take years to set up, yet the government is fast-tracking the bill.
Geist points out that without a functioning commission, there will be no age verification standards, no privacy review, no exceptions, and no effective enforcement, creating a huge risk when tens of millions of Canadians would be required to verify their age.
Sources have confirmed to UMVA that the government is essentially conceding that the ban is unlikely to carry any real consequences for those services that fail to comply when it first takes effect, rendering Big Brother toothless.
