As Liberals Look to Gain a Majority, Age Verification Pushed

The Liberal party seems destined to get a majority – just in time for their convention to be pushing age verification.

Back in March, I wrote an article on a floor crossing. At the time, the floor crossing meant that the by-elections coming up don’t really matter that much. This is because two of those by-elections are Liberal party strongholds and two wins is all the party needs to win themselves a majority. As a result, a majority government went from a possibility to an inevitability.

Politically, very little has really changed on this front since then. The Liberals are destined for a majority government. That little bit that has changed since then is the fact that there was yet another floor crosser from the Conservative party to the Liberal party. Canadians have likely seen the reports, but (now former) Conservative MP, Marilyn Gladu, was the recent floor crosser.

Politically speaking, this is probably the weirdest floor crosser out of all of them. This is because she’s well known for being a far right winger that has… crossed the floor and joined the Liberal party. Based on what I’ve known, Gladu was known to be an antivaxxer, a staunch defender of conversion therapy, and a pro-lifer. So, it wasn’t a surprise when Liberal party members, while welcoming another floor crosser as they inch closer to a majority government, were questioning why the heck she is even with them in the first place. So, Gladu “cleared the air” and said that she has always been a pro-choice person who opposes conversion therapy. This while saying in a media scrum that she has been hearing from her conservative constituents and they basically told her that conservative people really really like Mark Carney. Apparently, the torches and pitchforks that they have been figuratively brandishing is torches and pitchforks of love and support.

Media outlets covered all of this up by saying how the Liberal party is simply becoming a “big tent” party that supports a wide range of views. The reality is that this is more of an indictment of the leadership of the Conservative party – especially Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre has always been insufferable, but the long running joke I have is that he is so insufferable that even Conservative MPs can’t stand him and would rather cross the floor and join the Liberal party than to take another moment of being under Poilievre’s leadership. Yes, I know that he won overwhelming support at the leadership review, but it’s quite a stark difference when people who endorsed his leadership vote are jumping ship.

Ultimately, a big question mark for the Liberal party is how they can keep all these different kinds of voices under one roof in all of this. Indeed, some members are wondering what the heck their party is supposed to be after this recent floor crossing. Personally, it just means that the Liberal party has taken a hard shift to the right and Canada, whose constituents have tended to be left leaning, is being represented by two right wing parties in Parliament. You have the right wing Liberal party and far right wing Conservative party. The only real representation of left leaning policy making is found with the NDP and possibly Green party (assuming you count environmentalism as a left leaning value which, well, there are good arguments to be made about that).

I won’t re-write the article I wrote before about what it all means for digital rights. You can read that here. The thing is, when I wrote that article, the Liberal party was very much opposed to age verification laws. As a result, age verification was not only looking like it wasn’t going to pass, but it appears as though the current one, Bill S-209, was being watered down in a last ditch effort to try and get it to pass through Liberal MPs. It was good because some of the changes at least were a positive move in the right direction as far as I could tell (it would be better if it didn’t exist at all).

Well, as it turns out (and as one of my readers, Insert Name Here, pointed out), there is movement happening at the Liberal Party Convention being held right now to adopt age verification as an official party policy. The proposed resolutions can be found here and there are two separate Quebec proposals that popped up. First is resolution 24360 (Restricting Access to AI and Chatbots for Children and Teens) which was proposed by Liberal Party of Canada (Quebec). The second is resolution 74312 which is Protecting Canadian Youth from Social Media Harms as proposed by “Caucus & Liberal Party of Canada (Quebec)”. The details of the resolution can be found in this PDF (PDF). So, let’s go over what both say. First is resolution “74312” which reads as follows:

74312 – PROTECTING CANADIAN YOUTH FROM SOCIAL MEDIA HARMS

Sponsors: National Caucus, Quebec

WHEREAS young Canadians aged 11 to 17 spend over three hours per day on social media platforms (“Platforms”), and studies link such use to increased psychological distress, anxiety, and sleep disorders

WHEREAS youth face risks online, including cyberbullying, extortion, sharing non-consensual images, hateful content, addicting design features that harm mental health

WHEREAS Australia adopted robust legislation setting a minimum age of sixteen for social media accounts and imposing age-assurance, privacy, and safety obligations on Platforms

WHEREAS international best practices require Platforms to prevent underage account creation and reduce harmful design features, deepfake images, unsafe online interactions; and

WHEREAS Canada’s Bill C-63 addresses certain online harms but fails to set a minimum age for social media accounts.

BE IT RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the Government of Canada to:

• Set a minimum age of sixteen for creating social media accounts, placing an obligation on Platforms to prevent under-age users from holding accounts;
• Establish a regulatory framework requiring Platforms to use effective age-assurance tools, meet appropriate safety and privacy standards, eliminate harmful or addictive design features, protect minors from unsafe online interactions, and prevent and remove deepfake or synthetic images of non-consenting individuals;
• Give Government the authority to define and update which Platforms are covered, focusing on those posing the highest risks to youth;
• Create a digital safety body to monitor compliance, conduct audits, issue notices, and apply penalties;
• Provide a reasonable period for industry to prepare;
• Invest in digital literacy and mental health supports for youth; and
• Require a review within two years of implementation.

(emphasis mine)

So, in other words, the resolution relies on lies and disinformation to push for age verification. When you look at actual scientific research such as this, this, this, this, this, or this, you’ll quickly find that the research makes no such claims. In fact, this is the very same research I presented to the CBC when I complained about the outlet publishing disinformation only to have that research rejected outright with the comments that effectively said that fact-checking is not the CBC’s job on top of it all. They really hate it when you counter the narrative with facts and actual scientific research.

Then there is the other resolution which reads as follows:

24360 – RESTRICTING ACCESS TO AI AND CHATBOTS FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS

Sponsor: Quebec

WHEREAS AI and chatbots are having negative effects on the mental health of Canadian children and teens leading directly to a range of harmful behaviours. These technologies have been shown to limit desire for interaction with peers, pushed some young people into sexual conversations and have even recommended suicide to vulnerable youth.

WHEREAS numerous cases in the US, overseas and here in Canada have shown these platforms cause loneliness, depression and feelings of inadequacy, particularly in teens.

BE IT RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the Government of Canada to:

• impose an age restriction of 16 years on access to all AI chatbots and other potentially harmful forms of AI interaction. This includes AI technologies capable of carrying on a discussion or providing “advice,” such as Chat GPT, Character.AI, Nomi, Replika, Janitor AI and all the others.

Exceptions may be made for AI powered chatbots built into the customer service offerings of legitimate businesses supporting customers, such as airline, telecom companies, retail shops and others. In those cases, copies of such conversations must be accessible to the user, making it easy to report any potential improper performance on the part of the bots.

The problem here is that AI chatbots aren’t necessarily recommending anything to anyone. They are responding to prompts requested by those to put in the prompts. That’s it. They are not sentient by any means. It’s depressing that I have to keep explaining this in the first place.

What’s more, slapping on age restrictions to these tools is most definitely the wrong way to go about addressing the concerns that likely come from the rumour mill more than anything else. You can pass a law requiring safeguards such as getting the chatbots to not respond to specific queries. This while allowing some leniency when workarounds are inevitably found to circumvent said guard rails. Having a massive surveillance infrastructure is most decidedly the wrong approach here.

This isn’t even getting into the human rights problems both resolutions have. In fact, it was just yesterday I wrote about the EU human rights chief warning about this, saying that age verification is being pushed without actually trying to tackle whatever problems are being cited (warranted or not) in the first place. People’s right to privacy, security, and freedom of expression is being directly challenged by this.

In fact, when Bill S-209 was known as Bill S-210, Liberal MPs were rightly worried that this really is just a proposal for a national ID program that tracks the movements of the every day lives of Canadians. Those concerns were not wrong since it is a massive government surveillance system being proposed on top of it all.

It’s, of course, worth pointing out that these are just resolutions. Unless something has changed while I write this article, it’s not exactly official party policy yet. Resolutions do get voted down and, hopefully, these two resolutions get smacked down in the process. Still, if these two resolutions get adopted, it would represent a complete 180 for the Liberal party who, up until now, have been very skeptical about such laws in the first place. Given the inevitable majority government, we can all hope this doesn’t happen or we could be in for an even more rough ride than where we already are experiencing right now.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.