Manitoba Premier Plans Youth Ban on Social Media, AI Tools

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced plans Saturday to ban social media platforms and artificial intelligence chatbots for youth, positioning the province as the first in Canada to pursue such restrictions. Speaking at a New Democratic Party fundraiser in Winnipeg attended by about 900 people, Kinew emphasized protecting children from technologies he described as harmful to their mental health and development.

Kinew argued that social media and AI tools are engineered to exploit users' psychology, triggering dopamine releases to foster addiction and maximize profits for tech companies. "These are forces that contribute to anxiety and depression, these are forces that lead young women and girls being trafficked, and these are forces that lead to too many of our precious children taking their own lives," he said. He added that the platforms "hack our children's attention spans" and undermine childhood by prioritizing engagement over growth. "Our kids will never be for sale, and their attention and childhood should never be profited from," Kinew told the crowd.

The premier framed the initiative as a core responsibility. "As your premier, my most sacred responsibility is the...