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The Data on Australia’s Social Media Ban: The Better the Privacy Protection, The Less Effective the Ban
As regular readers know, the Canadian plan to establish a social media ban for under 16s in Bill C-34 is based largely on the Australian model that took effect last December. With more data on the ban’s effectiveness continuing to roll in, multiple studies now confirm that it simply hasn’t worked as the majority of under-age users still have access to social media accounts. Yet rather than treating that as a reason to reconsider the model, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament in late June that his government is working “as a priority” to strengthen the law. The failure highlights a troubling correlation: the better the privacy protection, the less effective the ban. In other words, since users will find ways to circumvent the ban, “strengthening” the law likely means less privacy and more surveillance.
Shaky Ground Gets Shakier: What the U.S. Supreme Court’s Location Data Decision Means for Bill C-22
When the government rushed Bill C-22 through the House of Commons last month, it defended the lawful access mandatory metadata retention requirement as consistent with similar rules established by Canada’s Five Eyes allies. Yet the U.S. has never imposed a comparable obligation to retain every subscriber’s transmission data, and this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that further solidifies the view that Bill C-22 is disproportionate and inconsistent with widely held understandings of privacy.
The Two Weeks That Reshaped Canada’s Digital Policy
It started with an unexpected early-morning announcement on June 3, 2026, from Marc Miller, the Minister of Identity and Culture. Mr. Miller said that the government planned to direct the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada’s broadcast regulator, to review its two-week-old decision that imposed hundreds of millions in new investment requirements on internet streaming services. My Globe and Mail essay that appeared over the weekend notes that the move came as a surprise, not only because he had chastised the commission a month earlier for moving too slowly, but also because it marked a major reversal of a core Canadian digital policy that had been years in the making. The decision sent shock waves through the cultural sector, but it was only the start.
Improv Policy: The Government Doesn’t Know What To Do About Its Online Streaming Act Mess
Earlier this month, the government shocked the culture sector by announcing it was effectively reversing the CRTC decision that implemented the Online Streaming Act. Culture Minister Marc Miller tried to cushion the blow with a promise of $600 million in support for the audio and audiovisual sectors, but there was no escaping the anger from some over abandoning a policy that had been years in the making. Weeks later, it is still not clear what precisely the government intends to do. In fact, it is increasingly evident that there is no plan, with the government improvising on critical issues such as the implementation of the reversal, funding for news, and the eventual contribution requirements for Internet streamers.
Soft Ban or Hard Verification Requirement?: Why Bill C-34’s Social Media Ban Exemption Gets the Incentives Wrong and Comes Too Late to Matter
The debate over Bill C-34’s social media ban for those under sixteen has largely focused on the impact on users, including mandated age verification for millions, the privacy risks of verification technologies, and experience elsewhere suggesting the policy is ineffective. Defenders of the ban have characterized the Canadian approach as a “soft ban” that will allow social media companies to obtain exemptions provided they meet yet-to-be-determined safety standards. This approach is said to create incentives for companies to address safety concerns and qualify for the exemption. But a closer look at the bill reveals that the approach does not work, as even “safe” services will be required to implement age verification for tens of millions of users. By the time the Digital Safety Commission has figured anything out, the services will have verified most of the country and likely lost users in the process. This is true not only for services that require significant design changes, but even those services that today would be widely acknowledged to be safe for children.
Recent Posts
The Data on Australia’s Social Media Ban: The Better the Privacy Protection, The Less Effective the Ban 
Shaky Ground Gets Shakier: What the U.S. Supreme Court’s Location Data Decision Means for Bill C-22 
The Two Weeks That Reshaped Canada’s Digital Policy 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 274: Mark Musselman on What Stakeholders Really Think About the Government’s Reversal of the CRTC Online Streaming Act Decision 
Improv Policy: The Government Doesn’t Know What To Do About Its Online Streaming Act Mess
