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The Federal Government of Canada has spent years wrestling with how to combat harmful content online. On June 10, 2026, the federal government introduced Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act (“Bill C-34”), placing social media companies, artificial intelligence (“AI”) chatbot operators, and a range of other online service providers on notice. If passed, Bill C-34 would represent the most comprehensive federal legislative framework for online digital safety Canada has ever attempted.
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Bill C-34 cleared first reading in the House of Commons, and the framework proposed is clear enough to demand attention. The bill would enact two new statutes: the Digital Safety Act (“DSA”) and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act (“DSCCA”). Together, these two pieces of legislation create a set of binding duties for regulated online service operators, establish a new enforcement body, and introduce significant financial penalties for non-compliance.
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This is not Canada’s first attempt at this kind of legislation. Bill C-34 is a reworked version of Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which was tabled in 2024 but never became law.
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Who Is Affected?
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Despite being titled the Safe Social Media Act, Bill C-34 casts a considerably wider net. The DSA would apply to the operators of three categories of regulated services accessible in Canada: social media services, AI chatbot services, and other online services (collectively, “Regulated Services”).
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The third category, a catch-all, is subject to regulation only where the government determines that a particular online service poses a significant risk of harm to children. This means that businesses and online service providers beyond the traditional social media sphere could find themselves in contravention of the DSA depending on the nature of their platform and their user base.
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The Digital Safety Act is primarily aimed at addressing several categories of harmful content:
- Intimate content shared without consent, including AI-generated deepfakes;
- Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor of childhood sexual abuse;
- Content that induces a child or minor to harm themselves;
- Content used to bully a child or minor;
- Content that incites violence.
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The Four Proposed Duties
1. A Duty to Protect Children — All Regulated Services
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Every operator of a Regulated Service would be required to implement design features aimed at creating a safer experience for minors, apply age verification or age-estimation tools to limit children’s access to pornographic content, and maintain records demonstrating compliance. Social media operators face the strictest standard: a mandatory minimum account age of 16, subject to a possible exemption where an operator can demonstrate it has put adequate child safeguards in place.
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Ban for Minors: Regulated social media platforms will be required to prevent minors under the age of 16 from registering for, or maintaining accounts using age verification or estimation measures, subject to limited future exemptions.
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2. A Duty to Act Responsibly — Social Media and AI Chatbot Operators
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Social media platforms would be required to take active steps to reduce users’ exposure to harmful content. This includes applying labels to synthetically generated material — such as AI-generated audio or video that could be mistaken for an authentic recording — and giving users the tools to flag content and block other users.
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AI chatbot operators would face their own distinct set of obligations. They would be required to mitigate the risk of communicating harmful content and would be expressly prohibited from four specific behaviours: representing themselves as human, impersonating licensed professionals, using manipulative techniques to foster unhealthy emotional dependencies, and encouraging self-harm or suicide.
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3. A Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible — Social Media Operators
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Social media platforms would be required to remove two categories of content: child sexual abuse material, and intimate images shared without consent (including AI-generated deepfakes). Once either type of content is identified by the platform or flagged by a user, the operator would have 24 hours to render it inaccessible. Notably, the proposed legislation does not require operators to proactively search for this content, though regulations may eventually mandate the use of technical content moderation tools to prevent child sexual abuse material from being hosted by the regulated platform.
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4. A Duty of Transparency — All Regulated Services
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All Regulated Services would be required to publish a digital safety plan setting out their commitments and deliverables with respect to these new obligations. This plan would serve as a public-facing disclosure document to be assessed by the applicable regulator. Failure to maintain a publicly accessible digital safety plan would expose an operator to enforcement scrutiny and financial penalties.
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The Regulator: The Digital Safety Commission of Canada
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The DSA would be administered and enforced by a newly created body, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada (the “Digital Safety Commission”). If Bill C-34 is passed, the Digital Safety Commission would be empowered to:
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- Set standards and issue guidance for Regulated Services;
- Conduct audits of digital safety plans;
- Hold hearings, compel testimony, and require the production of documents;
- Issue compliance orders enforceable as Federal Court judgments; and
- Receive and administer user complaints about content that should be made inaccessible, where a platform’s internal processes have proven insufficient.
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The Digital Safety Commission would carry broad regulatory authority spanning more than 30 heads of power. The operational specifics would be fleshed out after its establishment, but draft regulations would be pre-published in the Canada Gazette, providing an opportunity for public comment before they take effect.
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Key Takeaways for Canadian Businesses
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AI operators should be paying close attention. Canadian law has rarely imposed binding safety duties directly on AI chatbot operators. Following the mass shooting in British Columbia conducted with the assistance of OpenAI and many cases of young and vulnerable persons using AI companions to conduct self-harm the public need for safety regulation is readily apparent.
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This is not exclusively an AI or social media issue. If your business operates any online service through which Canadians interact with, share, or create content, it may fall within the scope of Bill C-34.
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The financial penalties are significant. Maximum fines on conviction would be the greater of $20 million or 5% of gross global revenue. Maximum administrative monetary penalties from the Commission would reach the greater of $10 million or 3% of gross global revenue.
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Do not wait for Royal Assent. Bill C-34 must still pass through multiple parliamentary stages before it becomes law, but the government’s intentions are sufficiently clear. Businesses with potential exposure should begin scoping their obligations now. A compliance gap analysis today is considerably easier than a regulatory scramble after the legislation comes into force.
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Many details remain to be written. Critical specifics — including age-verification standards, applicable user thresholds, and precise design feature requirements — will be determined by the Commission through future regulations.
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Engage with the process. Bill C-34 contemplates meaningful public consultation before regulations are enacted. Businesses that may bear the burden of compliance have both the right and a strategic incentive to participate meaningfully in the legislative process.
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Further Reading
Bill C-34 — LEGISinfo, Parliament of Canada
Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act — Government of Canada
Bill C-34 First Reading Text — Parliament of Canada
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This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, a solicitor-client relationship. Readers should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel. 2026 © nashid.ca