Ottawa will die Nutzung sozialer Medien für Kinder unter 16 Jahren verbieten

From Michael Geist:

> Working on a quick analysis of Bill C-34, but initial reaction is that this is largely the original Online Harms Act (platforms only) + social media ban for under 16 + Bill S-209 (pornography and age verification) + expansion to AI chatbots + power to Digital Safety Commission.

The legislation makes age verification mandatory for a ton of different things, which means unacceptable privacy violations.

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The Canadian government’s press conference for Bill C-34 has the authoritarian asshole Lianna McDonald speaking about the legislation.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) has spent years lobbying parliament to force mandatory age verification on every Canadian.

And some more facts about C3P:

* C3P’s leadership like CEO Lianna McDonald, and Director of Technology Lloyd Richardson constantly publish anti-encryption and anti-privacy disinformation on their site. They are very much anti-encryption extremists, and they love to spam Linkedin along with social media sites with their bullshit.

* C3P’s General Counsel, Monique St-Germain helps push their organization’s agenda in parliament.

* C3P was heavily pushing for the previous online harms act to target private messages, Tor, and VPNs.

* C3P is major lobbyist behind the EU’s Chat Control proposal, that seeks mandatory AI powered mass surveillance and encryption backdoors on all private communications: https://www.heise.de/en/background/Missing-Link-Prevention-at-the-Source-Chat-Control-and-Upload-Filters-10963771.html

* C3P is currently trying to kill the Tor Project by targeting those who fund it: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/25/tor-network-child-sexual-abuse

* C3P’s Project Arachnid bot was caught uploading illegal content to the ’saucenao‘ search engine, and then immediately reporting the site for having the content temporarily in the cache.

* C3P is also a major supporter of Bill S-209 (previously Bill s-210). They want mandatory age verification for everything.

Many of the people who have interacted with C3P in a professional capacity, say that C3P employees are emotionally unstable, and not capable of respecting privacy rights for legislative proposals.

Liberals: We need to diversify away from the US. We can’t keep putting the sign in the window. The US is no longer a reliable partner.

Also the liberals: Give your ID to Donald Trump’s biggest donors, nothing could go wrong.

I don’t think kids should use social media, I also don’t think it’s the governments place to step in and make sure they don’t. Let’s let the parents parent their children and not open doorways to further government overreach.

The correct way to say this is „Ottawa moves to monitor people’s online activities.“ I will worry about my own family. Ottawa can leave myself and family alone.

The only reasonable way to do this is either requiring ID to purchase a phone or providing ID once to a trustworthy appstore (Google/Apple). Expecting individual websites to all collect ID is a big security risk.

Alberta just recently included health care numbers on driver’s licenses and that is considered a security risk: https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/security-questions-remain-over-new-provincial-id-roll-out-privacy-watchdog/

More nanny state BS

I’d rather have less internet access than provide my ID to every tech bro that builds a product. 

This bill violates Canadians’ freedom of expression by restricting access to one of the primary platforms used for communication and public discourse, infringes on freedom of association by limiting the ability to connect with friends, communities, and organizations online, restricts access to information, news, and educational content, raises equality concerns by treating legal adults differently based solely on age despite allowing them to vote, work, pay taxes, and sign contracts, and creates privacy concerns through age-verification requirements that may require the collection of additional personal information. Rather than targeting specific harmful activities, it imposes a broad restriction on the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Canadians.

Remember at the dawn of the internet when it was drilled into our heads how dangerous it was to expose any personal information?? Pepperidge farm remembers.

This isn’t about children. This is about the government establishing the groundwork for stronger state surveillance at the cost of Canadian freedoms. This works in concert with other legislation already moving.

I will not comply.

“Think of the children!” says conservatives and religious fanatics going after 2SLGBTQ rights.

“Think of the children!” says liberals, NDPs, and left wing activists going after internet freedom.

The left and the right have more in common than they care to admit. The spectrum of political ideology is more horseshoe shaped than linear.

Honestly, its amazing how quickly the Liberals are working on China style digital ID. We have a hate speech law, a law mandating companies keep our data for a year, and now a digital ID law. All before a single shovel hits the ground for a nation building project. UK’s on fire after constant radicalization, and Canada’s marching into the same circumstances ripe for radicalization with confidence.

The onus should be on parents/guardians, not on government to ensure kids aren’t on social media at young ages

People are happy with this? How long a till online arrests for digital comments become a thing? Yea we’re absolutely done. RIP. You will definitely be remembered my great beautiful country.

Ahhh the old social credit score starter pack.

Yeah, the moment they require an ID to use the internet is the moment I stop using it. This does nothing to protect children, and that’s very obvious because we can see how little it has worked in the UK. They just want to de-anonymize the internet and are hiding it behind “protect the children” legislation. Pretty gross.