The Canadian government has introduced a new digital safety bill to prohibit social ⁠media for children under 16 and set safety standards for AI chatbots.

The bill addresses seven categories of harmful content:

• Content that sexually victimises children or revictimises survivors
• Content that induces children to harm themselves
• Content used to bully children
• Content that incites violence
• Content that foments hatred
• Terrorism or violent extremist content
• Non-consensual intimate images.

“While laws exist to respond once harm has happened, there is currently very little that requires online services to prevent harm in the first place. The Safe Social Media Act aims to change that by ensuring that social media services and artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are responsible for addressing harm before it occurs,” the official statement said.

Under the Safe Social Media Act, companies could face penalties of 3% of global revenue or ​up to CAD10m (USD7.2m) for failing to comply with the new rules.

“Social media platforms and AI chatbots are designed to ​capture attention. They do not support healthy childhood development and have become a source of anxiety, isolation, ⁠depression and a range of other mental health challenges for many young Canadians,” said minister of Canadian identity and culture Marc Miller.

The bill, which could take months to pass, also provides for the establishment of a safety regulator, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada.

However, the bill gives exemptions to companies that can prove their platforms meet certain safety standards.