Petition demands Canadian government implement social media ban for children under 16

A child on a cell phone. (Tetra Images/Getty Images)

A citizen-led movement from Quebec has launched a petition demanding that the Canadian government pass a law prohibiting children under the age of 16 from creating social media accounts.

The group, Age Standard, says it is also urging for “a concrete mechanism” to ensure the law’s legal enforcement.

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“We are parents who have designed and analyzed the systems our own children are growing up with today,” said Jean-Sébastien Giroux, the movement’s spokesperson and CEO and co-founder of Hologram. “We know how these platforms work, why they have no incentive to self-regulate, and above all, we know that a technical solution exists — one that is reliable and already deployed elsewhere.”

Giroux, along with six other parents from the tech and venture capital industries, is proposing that a ban be enforced “using age-estimation technology operated by independent third parties, based on a model already in place in several jurisdictions, including Australia.”

Additionally, they say they want the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to oversee its implementation, and that the platforms themselves not be involved.

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“What Canada has been debating for two years, others have already implemented,” Giroux said. “Our role now is to ensure that the upcoming legislation is done right from the start: not by the platforms themselves, not as a political slogan, but as a functioning mechanism.”

This comes after the Liberal Party of Canada agreed on April 11 to set 16 as the approved age for Canadians to start using social media.

“Age Standard points out that the public debate has so far focused on the what (should we legislate?), without addressing the how (through what technical mechanism?). This is precisely the gap the movement aims to fill,” the group insists.

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The parents point out that Canada should follow in Australia’s footsteps, which passed its social media ban on Dec. 10, 2025, for children under the age of 16.

The law forced social media companies to remove up to 4.7 million accounts.

Additionally, in one case, courts in the United States ruled last month that tech giants Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and YouTube were liable for social media addiction.

They were required to pay a victim US$6 million after she claimed the platforms left her with body dysmorphia, depression and suicidal thoughts.

The seven co-signatories from Age Standard are:

• Dan Robichaud, former head of innovation at Intel and former CEO of PasswordBox;
• Jean-Sébastien Giroux, CEO and co-founder of Hologram and Université de Sherbrooke professor;
• Olivier J. Bergeron, digital marketing professor at HEC Montréal, former CEO of Click & Mortar and partner at Tink;
• Jean-François Gagné, CEO of Nera and former CEO and co-founder of Element AI;
• Claudine Blondin Bronfman, philanthropist and executive in marketing and governance, executive co-chair of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation, chair of the board of C2 Montréal and director of Claridge and Stingray;
• Magaly Charbonneau, partner at Inovia Capital;
• Marc D. David, professor of marketing communication at the Université de Sherbrooke.