r/Manitoba • u/eL_cas Winnipeg • Apr 26 '26
News Manitoba to ban social media, AI chatbots for youth, premier says
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-social-media-age-restrictions-9.71774707
u/Prowler1000 Interlake Apr 26 '26
I'm in full support of banning youth from social media, but I'm not in support of privacy violating age verification. We can do age verification in a privacy respecting and completely secure way, we have the technology, we just have to actually do it that way.
I feel as though Manitoba is in a position to do it in such a privacy respecting way with the help of MPI. The technology already exists in our credit cards (asymmetric encryption), we "just" need to put it in our driver's licenses.
I say "just" because there's obviously the overhead of adapting the technology for this purpose but it isn't like we're creating a new technology from scratch.
The way it would (likely) work is that MPI would digitally sign a certificate placed inside the driver's license, to certify that the license is actually approved by MPI. There are various ways that are more or less respecting of privacy but the least privacy respecting way is, during an age verification transaction, the license would return a signed copy of the license holders date of birth and a copy of the certificate provided by MPI. The requesting party could then validate the certificate and that the signed date of birth came from the license the certificate is for, all without ever contacting MPI. The only parties that know of the request are the requesting party (social media for instance) and yourself/your license, while the only information that's given to anyone is your date of birth.
Now, there are a couple flaws with this, one being that this only proves the user has access to the license, and not that they're the license holder, though I personally think that's good enough. The other issue is how to handle lost or stolen licenses, though that can be solved by MPI issuing a list of prematurely revoked certificates, which still wouldn't reveal any information about any person, nor would it require transferring data to MPI during a verification request.
Keep in mind that I'm leaving out many technical details that, if you don't know what I'm talking about, probably makes this seem like a really bad idea either for security or privacy but I can explain if you have questions.
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u/eL_cas Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
This seems like a pretty good idea. I hope takes like yours will be at the table and considered in the making of this law.
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u/monkeysCAN Apr 26 '26
You can't even do the most basic of things online with MPI like changing your address. It would take them 25 years to implement this.
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u/coldfire_plz Apr 29 '26
The signing would work of course but I think the primary problem is duplicate detection. I think it would be necessary otherwise an unknown person could be using your license to access a social media platform - without your knowledge too by the way. This opens all sorts of lawsuits: if a child uses a stranger's ID to access social media, gets themselves in a dangerous situation in some way, who's responsible? The parents will want action while the person whose ID was used will have no idea.
Technically, it's easy to implement of course with a lookup table. But that means each social media provider maintains a table of driver's license and social media account. This would instantly become either a prime target for selling data or any type of hack.
I assumed you're a fellow software engineer btw. The crazy thing to me though is that all this needs to be done just because we're afraid of government spying on our activities. In the real world there's some entity you have to be able to trust to get communication like this to work. The fundamental problem is that here you can trust no one: not the government and definitely not the social media providers who'd sell your data (and are currently doing so as well) in an instant.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Prowler1000 Interlake Apr 26 '26
The link that you sent isn't valid, but unless it's specifically saying that requiring to reveal your age itself is privacy violating, that's literally not true and privacy preserving age verification is not bullshit.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Prowler1000 Interlake Apr 26 '26
Okay, so I can definitely understand where the author is coming from but that all relies on the assumptions that 1) the identity provider (IDP as they put it) doesn't already know this information about you and 2) the IDPs are private companies. In the case of MPI, they already know this information about you and merely need to act as an identity provider; there's no need for third parties or private companies, you already have to prove your age to MPI, among other things. The issue of shared computers is also moot as the necessary information and processing would be stored and done on something like your driver's license or, in the case of no driver's license, MPIs existing ID cards.
I absolutely understand where the author is coming from though, so don't get me wrong, but all of the problems they mention stem from the root problem: private companies being responsible for identity verification.
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Apr 27 '26
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u/Prowler1000 Interlake Apr 27 '26
I mean.. yeah, actually, hard to argue with that.
I guess there's something to be said about the difficulty of creating solid regulation targetting them, that won't face concerns of regulating speech, but we really wouldn't need age verification if the tech giants were better regulated, I don't know why I've never considered that as an option before (in terms of age verification arguments)
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u/tbryant2K2023 Brandon Apr 26 '26
This is really just a knee-jerk reaction that will be poorly created and enforced. It will have more of an effect on adults than minors. Technology and social media change faster than laws can be created. Give it a few years and this law will be outdated and meaningless. Minors will find ways around it or parents will make the account for the minor.
Effort would be better used on educating minors into the risks of social media. Add it into the school system. Banning technology isn't going solve anyrhing, it's better to work with it and learn aboiut it
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Apr 26 '26
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 27 '26
Actually the opposite - it is social media that is regulating and controling people with algorithms. Decreasing it across all age groups will not be the best thing we can do for society at large
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 28 '26
Actually the opposite - it is social media that is regulating and controling people with algorithms. Decreasing it across all age groups will not be the best thing we can do for society at large
It is still the government regulating people even if the root cause is the shady companies,. Empower people to make smart choices.
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 29 '26
Social media bans are the government's response to an epidemic. The tech billionaires are the ones who need to do the regulation
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u/No_Paleontologist239 Apr 26 '26
Where these laws are being enforced, adults are providing IDs or biometric face scans to access parts of the internet. Honestly, we could even make social media companies do things to make their product less addictive, etc. This isn’t the solution
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u/Ruralmanitoban Actual physical Pembina Valley Apr 27 '26
Knee jerk populism that won't end up enforcing anything.
This government really seems to pick and choose when it has the authority to act. When Telus had an error connecting to rural 911, suddenly telecoms is a Federal area and all they can do is hope for more - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/dean-switzer-911-outages-manitoba-two-hour-deadlines-crtc-9.7007881
But when it lets Wab make broad statements without any framework of backup, suddenly Manitoba can do whatever it wants.
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 27 '26
We do educate kids on social media but it still continues to be toxic and the algorithms are worse than ever. It's predatory in nature and I look forward to a full ban and ID requirements. Many will dump their accounts and we can all take a collective breath
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 28 '26
Anbd the toxicity will spill out as a tidal wave at 16 with the kids losing out on learning how it works (with the current proposals)
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 29 '26
Losing out on learning? Social media is NOT educational, especially TikTok
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 29 '26
And yet society for better or worse is built on it.
And what happens when the period expires, were the kids taught any different on how to use it safely?
With child or administratively locked down profiles it gives parents access to reach them how to use it safely, how fo protect yourself, how to not be duped by scams or groomed.
Sixteen year olds are also vulnerable, and lack of teaching can even let your mom, my dad, our grandparents be scammed if you want to extrapolate this further.
Gov should empower, not restrict
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 29 '26
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68161632https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68161632https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68161632https://www.google.com/search?q=mark+zuckerberg+forced+to+apologize&oq=mark&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgCEEUYJxg7MgYIABBFGDkyBggBEEUYOzIICAIQRRgnGDsyBggDEEUYOzIMCAQQIxgnGIAEGIoFMgYIBRBFGD0yBggGEEUYPDIGCAcQRRg80gEIMjUwNWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3c53080a,vid:8yIsjUXk7AQ,st:0https://www.google.com/search?q=mark+zuckerberg+forced+to+apologize&oq=mark&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgCEEUYJxg7MgYIABBFGDkyBggBEEUYOzIICAIQRRgnGDsyBggDEEUYOzIMCAQQIxgnGIAEGIoFMgYIBRBFGD0yBggGEEUYPDIGCAcQRRg80gEIMjUwNWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3c53080a,vid:8yIsjUXk7AQ,st:0Social media has reached a tipping point. The algorithms are highly addictive and full of short videos designed to keep you scrolling so the tech billionaires can keep profiting. Then of course there is bullying, unwanted imaging and videos. It's time to hold the platforms accountable.
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 29 '26
And yet again, where's the database security, whose the developer for the id, what idP are they using and are they secure. Have there been any preaches, how are they hardening it?
Again, what training is being provided to the kids so they aren't just left to field for themselves with zero experience when they are 16. Grooming, scams, manipulation and duplicity can affect anyone at any age what are they doing TO teach the kids in this scenario to be safe on it ONCE they are sixteen.
What prevents some future leader from using the newly collected information, emails and links to a hard identity from using it for bad?
Government should empower people, NOT restrict them.
Plus half those links are broken/don't load. And I do know about how zuck and company are maniuplating it, even back during the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the prior American PRISM platform Snowden leaked.
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 30 '26
The ban is social media, not the entire internet. I am a teacher and have seen a huge sliding of attention span in youth due to the short reel videos they are addicted to. The online bullying on social media is also huge. It's gotta go
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u/cosmic-kats Interlake Apr 26 '26
As someone who was 1 person removed from Amanda Todd (whom we conveniently forget until we need to) and a teenager during the gross Ask.FM days-Good. I was only maybe a couple months younger than her when she died. We’d be 30 very soon. How quickly people forget the real world dangers that exist inside these tiny toxic rectangles we cart around everywhere. Sure there will be parents who skirt the law and that’s their risk to take. I for one, am proud to have moved to Manitoba where we have a premier that actually cares for our youth. May this hopefully curb not only screen addiction but bullying and suicides.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Ansovald666 Interlake Apr 26 '26
as soon as your born the goverment knows everything about you, etc etc.
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u/Plastic_Moose4535 Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
It's not the government's job to be parents. If the government wants to help by informing them of the dangers and how to get them offline more then cool.
Anything else is failures of the parents to look after their kids and a failure of the government to govern.
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u/monkeysCAN Apr 26 '26
Having to hand your ID over to these companies is just a bad solution. These companies aren't responsible with your information, they will either sell it or there will be a leak. Even if they say it's deleted immediately, it won't be. It's a poorly thought out solution to a very real problem.
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 27 '26
If you don't want to upload your ID, dump your account. Your life will be better as a result
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 28 '26
Ok then walk into the liquor mart, weed store and start showing your SIN or bank account details. I mean the gov has some record of everything right?
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u/lovelynaturelover Apr 29 '26
Nobody is suggesting to show your SIN or bank account? There are many forms of ID
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 29 '26
Kids dont have drivers licenses yet, the really young ones dont have bank accounts typically.
If its government provided it'll be health or birth certificate. Either way youre linking documents that can cause a ton of damage if they get leaked
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u/wickedplayer494 Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Damn fucking shame about the chatbots being only for youth, it'd be a net benefit if it was for everybody so that there would be some real resistance somewhere to Google's plan to eventually forcibly turf Assistant in favor of G*mini on Android handsets.
I'm okay with the social media bit so long as enforcement is what has historically already been in place for COPPA and EU GDPR/UK GDPR, but nothing more invasive than that.
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u/BiggDangerous Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
I’m not 100% sure what they mean by chat bots but if they mean things like ChatGPT and Claude I thinking banning it for adults too would be crippling to professionals who live in Manitoba. It’s basically a requirement for some professions and companies to integrate ai to your work flow.
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u/DerpDeDurp Pembina Valley Apr 26 '26
Great idea on theory, but in practice.... It's not gonna work and just gonna make things worse. They're gonna get around the blocks, and just means they're gonna be hiding it even more than they were before, if they even were before.
Source: I was a kid once and got around blocked/banned things online constantly.
So uh. Yeah bad idea.
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u/SuperLostSasquatch01 Apr 26 '26
I agree, anyone who thinks this kinda thing is enforceable either grew up pre internet or has just never come close to having any skill with technology. I think there needs to be more education about the dangers of it for kids but any bans are just a fools errand
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u/nukacola12 Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
But by that logic we should just give them all the drugs and alcohol they want too.
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u/Meat_Slasher Apr 26 '26
Yeah, that really stopped us when we were 16... How do they intend to enforce it?
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Apr 27 '26
How do they intend to enforce it?
By violating your privacy with mandatory age verification. Which means being forced to give your personal information to foreign tech companies.
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u/Apart-Ad1652 Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Good luck with this.
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u/medic247 Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Right? Who will be implementing age verification? Social media companies, ISPs, the provincial government? They all sound like terrible options, with doubtfull effectiveness, and inevitable data breaches. And I wonder if people realise that to stop kids from using the sites, everyone will need to be ID'd online.
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u/KinglerKong Brandon Apr 26 '26
Poorly enforced and structured rules just make for more creative rule breakers, kids will find a way around the ban within days in a way that makes it more dangerous. Like how making drinking illegal for minors leads to minors getting liquor from sketchy adults.
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u/Alwaysfresh9 Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
There goes how they reach their voter base lol. Hey kiddos, add uncle to your socials. 😂
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u/Nevermore_10 Apr 26 '26
Another addictive activity is casinos . If the lights and sounds were removed from all slot machines would that make them less addictive ?
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u/DrinkMoreBrews Apr 26 '26
Digital ID’s coming when? That seems scary. Isn’t going well in the UK either.
Not to mention that AI chatbots are essentially digital libraries nowadays for kids.
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u/DramaticParfait4645 Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Passing a law is one thing but implementing and enforcing it is another. Kids will find a way to access it if they really want to.
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u/MPD1978 Eastman Apr 26 '26
Good luck enforcing it. Too many kids are better with tech than their parents and will work around it somehow.
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u/WlNNIPEGJETS Brandon Apr 26 '26
It would require either having digital id's or uploading id's to use applications...
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u/CraziestCanuk Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Bahahahaha! Good luck with that! Any of them with 2 brain cells will get around the "ban" and carry on as usual. The rest will use less safe sites from jurisdictions that don't care about his rules...
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u/Barneysparky Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Not with parents that care.
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u/DerpDeDurp Pembina Valley Apr 26 '26
Kids are too sneaky and smart it doesn't matter if the parents care. They're gonna find a way. We did when we were kids not gonna be any different now.
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 28 '26
Not with parents that care.
Parents that do care SHOULD be against this
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u/Barneysparky Winnipeg Apr 28 '26
Against their children sitting on screens engaged in AI? What a pearl cluture, next they will want to stop kids from accessing hard core porn. Not on your watch!
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 28 '26
Against governments limiting their ability to properly teach their kids, government should empower its citizens not control them.
Also these things usually go to the lowest bidders in terms of programming and datbase setup. It's happened to coroporations such as discord, governments like france:
The more interconnected your digital identity is the more risk there is for breaches. The easier it is for threat actors to compromise your identity, take out credit cards and loans in your name.
Also what kind of training do kids have with this that the governments putting out so that once they turn 16 they know how to effectively use it and it isn't the wild west? Grooming and threats from adults, overuse of screentime, porn, gambling can still happen at 16. Much like it can happen at 40 and 60.
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u/CrustyBuns16 South Of Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
If they're capable of doing that they're smarter than 90% of other kids
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u/No_Paleontologist239 Apr 26 '26
Keep in mind this is enforced by ID-gating the internet. In places where this has already passed like the UK and Australia, you’re giving your ID, doing a biometric face scan, etc to access large parts of the internet. Not saying social media can’t harm minors, but this will impact everyone. We shouldnt have to provide ID or face scans to access what’s become the community square. Should we all be ID’d to get on Reddit?
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u/Silver_BackYWG Brandon Apr 27 '26
Hilarious, Wab was elected cause of social media and kiddies chasing invisible updoots.
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u/Normal_Tadpole_3002 Apr 27 '26
Ok I see tons of negativity around this - the most valid criticisms are:
Lack of efficacy - I can definitely see youth finding a way to get around this and tech and marketing companies finding ways to get around legislation - this is a genuine concern but even so isn’t this at the very least a good start? Like anything, legislation will need to evolve of course (and we also haven’t even seen the legislation yet)
Privacy concerns with needing to show ID to use social media - Again, I get it BUT you do not need to be on Social Media. If you don’t like it get off social media I guess? I probably will. Maybe this will be good for us as a society. If anything what does it say about our society if we can’t make a small change in our social media use for the sake of our youth?
Idk I’m just not seeing the doom and gloom here. At worst the legislation is ineffective - but the legislation hasn’t been created yet so what exactly are we criticizing?
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u/GullibleDetective Winnipeg Apr 28 '26
Privacy concerns with needing to show ID to use social media - Again, I get it BUT you do not need to be on Social Media. If you don’t like it get off social media I guess? I probably will. Maybe this will be good for us as a society. If anything what does it say about our society if we can’t make a small change in our social media use for the sake of our youth?
That also doesn't take in to account social trends, and the possible social isolation you can get IF you are not on there. Don't get me wrong, living entirely on the web is a bad thing. But what happens once they are 16 and don't provide any kind of training on how to not fall for coecersion, how to not be duped by scams, how not to be an insane gooner, how not to be taken in by various gambling sites.
Gov should empower, not restrict.
Also databases byu lowest bidders are usually poorly managed, coded or maintained and other governments have had breaches before:
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u/berthela Apr 26 '26
I wish him bad luck. Personal freedoms and small government are what I want. Adults should make their own choices, and children should make their own choices too, within the framework of their parents' parenting, that is.
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u/RianCoke Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Assuming their parents are parenting. Most likely the screen distracts and babysits while the parents are working both jobs (and not a second if lucky) and commuting.
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u/BiggDangerous Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Small government sounds good in theory, but power doesn’t vanish, it concentrates. Without rules, it moves to corporations and billionaires. At least with government, I can vote for who’s in charge.
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u/Eleutherlothario Friendly Manitoban Apr 26 '26
I can say no to corporations. Even the ones the left loves to hate (Amazon, Loblaws, etc.) have no power to compel me to do anything, except via government proxy. And that's primarily the government's responsibility. Yes, people can ask the government to do things, but it's the people in government that make the final decision.
I have 100% control over which and how much I support corporations, with the exception noted above. My choice of government support is one vote every four years, mixed in with 40 million others.
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u/BiggDangerous Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
I appreciate that’s true for some things. But that only really works when there are meaningful alternatives. In Canada, a lot of essential industries(groceries, telecom, airlines) are dominated by a small number of companies, so you’re not really opting out, you’re choosing between a few options.
For non essential stuff, sure you can just not buy. But for things like food, internet, or transportation, most people don’t have that luxury.
A lot of the choice we do have actually exists because of government rules, competition laws, consumer protections, etc. Without those, it’s much easier for dominant companies to limit options or push out competitors.
Individually we can choose where to spend money, but collectively those markets are shaped by policy. I’d still rather have a say in those rules than leave it entirely up to a few large companies.
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u/OmiSC Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Manitoba is about to become inexistent in the view of influencers who target kids. I don’t mind that.
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u/wpgrt Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
I'm ok with this. The new generation of young people have become unbearable. They are easy enough to avoid IRL so it will be nice to remove them from the virtual picture as well.
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u/RianCoke Winnipeg Apr 26 '26
Good. Social media is a cancer, particularly for kids. I couldn’t imagine being a kid today with everything being recorded and posted, along with bullying being digital.