{"id":617200,"date":"2026-04-20T19:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/617200\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T19:53:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:53:18","slug":"should-online-harms-bill-cover-ai-chatbots-ottawas-advisory-group-mixed-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/617200\/","title":{"rendered":"Should online harms bill cover AI chatbots? Ottawa\u2019s advisory group mixed – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\tBy Anja Karadeglija<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted April 20, 2026 2:11 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t1 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Some of the experts Ottawa has tasked with giving it direction on the upcoming online harms bill<\/a> say the legislation should cover AI chatbots.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Three of the experts on the 11-member panel say the bill should regulate AI chatbots<\/a>, though opinion on the idea of age restrictions on access to social media is more varied.<\/p>\n

Those are two key issues the government is considering as it develops promised legislation to improve online safety.<\/p>\n

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In March, it reconvened an expert group it previously consulted on an earlier iteration of that bill, which did not become law before last year\u2019s election was called.<\/p>\n

Since then, safety issues linked to artificial intelligence-based chatbots and the idea of age restrictions for social media have emerged as global political issues.<\/p>\n

Culture Minister Marc Miller said last week the government is \u201cvery seriously\u201d considering a social media ban for kids, and will leave it to the expert group to weigh in on whether the bill should cover AI chatbots.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Anja Karadeglija The Canadian Press Posted April 20, 2026 2:11 pm 1 min read Descrease article font…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[50339,276,49,48,183429,34303,20739,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-617200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa","8":"tag-ai-chatbots","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-online-harms-bill","13":"tag-online-safety","14":"tag-ottawa","15":"tag-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}