Manitoba set to become 1st province to ban social media for children

Manitoba could soon be the first province in Canada to ban social media, including AI chatbots, for youth, Premier Wab Kinew said this weekend.

Kinew’s announcement at an NDP fundraiser in Winnipeg comes as other provinces and the federal government are considering whether to implement similar restrictions.

“As your premier, my most sacred responsibility is the protection and the safety of our children,” he said.

“We are going to take action on things that are really harming our kids. These are forces that contribute to anxiety and depression, these are forces that lead young women and girls being trafficked and these are forces that lead to too many of our precious children taking their own lives. I’m talking about social media.”

Kinew said the platforms are doing “very, very awful things” to children, adding they’re designed to get people “addicted to the infinite scroll” by triggering the release of dopamine.

The premier’s plan for a ban isn’t new.

Members of the federal Liberal party voted earlier this month to set 16 as the age for Canadians to be able to use social media accounts during the party’s policy convention.

A few days later, Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra said the Progressive Conservative government is also considering a total, province-wide prohibition on cellphones in elementary and high schools, along with a social media ban for children under 16.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has said his government plans to ask the public their views on a ban.

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These actions follow Australia passing its social media ban for the same age group in December. That law will also make platforms like TikTok and Meta liable for fines of up to C$45.5 million for systematic failures to prevent children under 16 from holding accounts.

But while some provinces and the federal Liberals have suggested it, Kinew appears to be the first to be moving forward with it, though he did not say when his plan will be enacted. He also didn’t specify the age range the law will target, or how a provincial government could have jurisdiction over such platforms.

Carmi Levy, a technology analyst, said in an interview that the way a ban be implemented is another obstacle.

He said the law in Australia requires social media companies to implement age verification technologies, but also to use AI to scan accounts for signs of whether they are the age they said they were when signing up.

“It’s not 100-per cent solution,” he said. “Kids are managing to bypass it in Australia, and I think we would have to expect that the same thing would happen here, both in Manitoba as well in Canada.

“The trick is to ensure that the vast majority of kids are targeted, that the mass majority of kids are given other alternatives to unmitigated social media access and that their safety is maximized.”

Support for such rules around social media nationally is high, with an Angus Reid Institute poll in March finding banning those under 16 from the platforms would be “well-received.” About 75 per cent of those surveyed said they support a full ban. The poll also showed 70 per cent of parents with kids in the household support the idea.

There have also been questions since the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School about how the person behind the tragedy used OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The 18-year-old was banned from using the AI chatbot due to worrisome interactions, but the company did not alert law enforcement and the shooter got around the ban by having a second account.

Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued an apology letter to Tumbler Ridge, saying the company was “deeply sorry” it did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June.

Federal Culture Minister Marc Miller has said earlier in April that the decision about a potential ban would be left to an expert panel currently examining online harms, to weigh in on whether the bill should cover AI chatbots.

“We owe the next generation of Manitobans a simple promise, freedom,” Kinew said on Saturday.

“Freedom from screen time. Freedom to be a kid and to enjoy this beautiful place that we call home by going outside and playing with your friends in person.”

The Manitoba legislative assembly is expected to sit for four more weeks before summer break and not reconvene until the end of September.

—with files from Global News’ Hersh Singh and The Canadian Press