MACLEOD: Safe Social Media Act isn't about protecting kids — it's about government controlling the Internet

There are few easier political arguments than saying we must protect children online. Every serious parent agrees with that. Every responsible adult knows social media can be addictive, manipulative, corrosive, and, at times, deeply harmful. The platforms have designed products that capture attention, reward outrage, promote insecurity, and keep young people scrolling long after common sense says they should be outside, reading a book, playing hockey, or annoying their parents in a healthier way.So when Ottawa introduces a bill called the Safe Social Media Act, it sounds harmless enough. Compassionate, even. It sounds like the government is finally stepping in where Silicon Valley has failed. But Albertans should read Bill C-34 with both eyes open.This is not simply a child protection bill. It is another major federal move into online speech, online identity, platform access, algorithmic design, content moderation, artificial intelligence, and the regulation of what Canadians may see, say, share, and access online. It is being sold as a shield for children. In practice, it risks becoming another lever of centralized federal control over the digital public square.Bill C-34 would create two new pieces of law: the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act. Its stated purpose is to make social media services and AI chatbot services safer, especially for children. The bill would require regulated platforms to assess risks, mitigate exposure to harmful content, provide blocking and flagging tools, label synthetic content, publish safety plans, and adopt “age-appropriate” design features. It would also establish a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee, audit, enforce, order compliance, and penalize companies that fail to meet the new rules..The headline provision is the proposed ban on social media accounts for children under 16. Platforms could apply for an exemption if they can prove to the regulator that they have sufficient safeguards. That sounds reasonable, until one asks the obvious question: how exactly does a platform know whether a user is 15 or 16?A national under-16 ban does not just affect children. It likely means age verification for everyone. Adults would have to prove they are adults before accessing ordinary social media services. That could mean government identification checks, facial age estimation, third-party verification companies, biometric scans, or some other form of digital proof. Once that infrastructure exists, it will not politely sit in the corner and mind its own business. It will expand.Michael Geist, one of Canada’s leading internet law experts, has warned that this kind of age-based ban risks creating a permanent verification architecture. His point is simple and difficult to dismiss: a policy marketed as child safety may require machinery that affects every Canadian. .The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has raised similar concerns. Its criticism is not that children should be abandoned to predatory online platforms. Its concern is that Bill C-34 gives Ottawa and a new regulator sweeping, open-ended power over regulated services, while encouraging companies to over-comply in ways that could damage privacy and freedom of expression. In plain English, when platforms face unclear rules and serious penalties, they will restrict too much, verify too much, remove too much, and censor first..This is how centralized control usually arrives. Not with a declaration that the government intends to control speech, but with a moral emergency. The stated cause is always worthy. Safety. Fairness. Inclusion. Protection. Democracy. The mechanism is usually the same: a new regulator, broad discretionary authority, undefined standards, compliance orders, penalties, reporting duties, and the slow normalization of federal oversight over private communication.Albertans should be especially wary because Bill C-34 does not arrive in isolation. It follows years of federal pressure on media, speech, technology, and information flows. Bill C-11 gave the CRTC new influence over online streaming. Bill C-18 tried to force digital platforms into financial arrangements with Canadian news organizations, with predictable consequences when Meta blocked news links. Bill C-63 raised serious concerns about online harms and speech regulation before dying on the order paper. Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, has also raised privacy concerns around subscriber information and digital surveillance powers.Now comes Bill C-34, dressed in the soft language of child protection.To be clear, the problem is real. Online sextortion, cyberbullying, sexual exploitation, and self-harm content are real. AI chatbots can create new risks. Parents are concerned. Children are too often exposed to things they are not mature enough to process. But these real problems do not justify a blank cheque for Ottawa. Most parents will handle this issue in their own way, and that is their responsibility. A better approach would be narrower, clearer, and much less intrusive. Ban manipulative design features aimed at children. Prohibit profiling and targeted advertising to children. Make platforms liable when they knowingly ignore exploitation, sextortion, or child abuse material. Improve law enforcement response to online predators. Support school-based phone policies. Teach digital literacy. Demand transparency from the platforms without forcing every Canadian into an age-verification checkpoint..The deeper issue is trust. The federal government is asking Canadians to trust that this new regulator will be reasonable, limited, independent, and respectful of rights. But experience suggests otherwise. Federal programs rarely remain confined to their original purpose. Agencies seek relevance and growth. Bureaucracies expand. Standards shift. What begins as child safety can become content control. What begins as age verification can become identity verification. What begins as platform accountability can become political oversight of the public conversation.For Alberta, this matters. We already know what happens when national institutions are used to manage narratives hostile to this province. Energy policy, climate policy, firearms policy, pandemic policy, media subsidies, speech regulation, and federal “misinformation” initiatives have all followed the same pattern: Ottawa defines the problem, Ottawa builds the regulator, Ottawa sets the standard, and Western Canadians are told to comply.That is why Bill C-34 belongs in the broader conversation about independence. Alberta is not merely arguing about pipelines, equalization, firearms, carbon taxes, or Senate seats. We are arguing about who gets to govern our lives, our economy, our speech, our institutions, and our future. This federal government, with its focus on the “New World Order,” increasingly believes the answer is Ottawa. Or maybe even the European Union.Albertans should demand better. Protect children, yes. Hold platforms accountable, absolutely. But do not let the federal government use children as the emotional justification for building a permanent digital control system..An independent Alberta would still need to deal with social media, child safety, online predators, and platform accountability. But we could do it closer to home, with laws designed by Albertans, accountable to Albertans, and constrained by the common sense of a smaller, freer political community.That is the point Ottawa never seems to understand. Albertans are not opposed to protecting children. We are opposed to being governed by a distant political class that uses every crisis, every fear, and every moral panic as another reason to centralize power.Bill C-34 is not just about social media. It is about who controls the public square.And if Albertans want a future where our children are protected without our freedoms being slowly licenced, monitored, and managed from Central Canada, then we should take this bill seriously.It is yet another reminder of why Alberta needs to govern itself.

MACLEOD: Safe Social Media Act isn't about protecting kids — it's about government controlling the Internet

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