Bill C-34’s proposed social media ban for kids has rightly attracted considerable criticism since the bill was tabled last month, given that it requires age verification for most Canadians to use social media and the government plans to implement it before privacy safeguards are in place. Moreover, as I wrote last week, mounting data from Australia indicates that bans simply do not work. Thanks to a reader for pointing to a new Australian study that identifies yet another cost: young people’s access to news. The concern has resonance in Canada, where youth access to news on social media has already been undermined by the Online News Act, which prompted Meta to block news links on Facebook and Instagram. Bill C-34 would exacerbate the problem by cutting kids off TikTok and YouTube, which emerged as important news sources after the Meta news link block.
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