While teenagers are glad to see that the government’s new social media legislation, Bill C-34, aims to hold technology companies more accountable for online youth safety, some fear an outright ban for youth could do more harm than good.
Senator Katherine Hay told youth at the discussion that they “can still shape this legislation, and this is getting a seat at the table.”
The Government of Canada’s proposed Safe Social Media Act aims to regulate how social media and AI chatbots engage with young Canadians by implementing a 16-year-old minimum age requirement alongside other protections, and creating a commission to ensure compliance.
“It’s a good start, but I definitely think there’s work to be done,” Grade 12 student and Rally Youth Advisory Committee member Ash MacArthur told BetaKit in an interview.
Bill C-34 was a hot topic on Wednesday at Rally. Launched last year to help teens reclaim control of their online lives, Rally’s second-annual digital wellness festival drew approximately 2,700 high school students, teachers, and others from nearly 60 Greater Toronto Area schools (up from 35 last year) to Toronto’s Meridian Hall.
Hordes of Grade 9 through 12 students put their phones down for a beat to race around on roller skates, pat dogs, play with a robot, touch artificial grass, and hear from peers and experts as live DJs filled the venue with music.
This year’s Rally was bigger, louder, and made a more concerted effort to put teens front and centre, both on and off stage. After the main show, around a dozen high school students took part in a closed-door discussion that Rally organized to share their perspectives on Bill C-34 with Senator Katherine Hay, who plans to sponsor the proposed legislation as it moves from the House of Commons to the Senate.
BetaKit spoke with Hay, MacArthur, and other students involved in that conversation, as well as Rally co-founder Keith Wallace, to get a better sense of how teens are feeling about Bill C-34.
In her opening remarks, which BetaKit and other members of the media were permitted to attend, Hay’s message to participating youth was clear: “you can still shape this legislation, and this is getting a seat at the table.”
Rally co-founder Brigitte Truong moderated as Hay listened, took notes, and fielded questions. Grade 12 student Charlie Boyle called it a unique opportunity to engage with a sitting senator and said Hay’s approach made her “feel so heard,” while MacArthur was happy to see that Hay exchanged contact information and wanted to continue the conversation.
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Hay plans to compile and submit her takeaways in a report to Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller. She told BetaKit that she approached Rally’s organizers with the idea for this conversation. The former Kids Help Phone CEO, who became a senator last year, has taken a keen interest in matters affecting youth and “AI innovation for all … for good.”
Some youth at the event expressed support for the proposed ban, while others were less certain. “A complete ban can almost be more harmful than good because of loopholes and because of problems with inclusivity,” Boyle argued.
While Boyle and MacArthur acknowledged that consuming too much social media at a young age can be detrimental to your mental health, another roundtable participant argued that not having access to it would have hamstrung their creativity.
Where there was consensus was for the plan to put more pressure on tech companies to build guardrails to protect youth from harmful content.
While Wallace doesn’t know Bill C-34 “inside out,” he told BetaKit that he is a strong believer that social media has been left unregulated “for way too long, and we need to do something.”
“If we have to ban it for under 16s and then slowly reintroduce it in a safer way, then that’s a success because the opposite [approach] isn’t helping anyone at the moment,” Wallace added.
Hay said she came out of the conversation with a deeper understanding of the positive connections and creativity social media can facilitate. She said she feels hopeful that teens are not afraid of this tech and that they are so open about their experiences and solution-oriented.
Feature image courtesy Rally. Photo by Robert Okine.