The Canadian government is considering extending its social media safety law to cover gaming platforms as well, including Minecraft and Roblox. Canada's Minister of Identity, Marc Miller, said during a parliamentary debate on October 21, 2026, that he's ready to "strongly consider" adding certain gaming aspects to regulations that currently only cover social networking sites. As reported by Dexerto, this concerns an amendment to the law known as the Safe Social Media Act, or Bill C-34.

A law that was meant to skip games

Bill C-34 was introduced to the Canadian parliament in June 2026, and in its original form it banned anyone under 16 from holding accounts on social media platforms unless the service could show sufficient safeguards for younger users. The bill's authors focused exclusively on social media in the classic sense, leaving out online games, messaging apps, and platforms like Discord. That very absence of games from the regulations has become a point of contention in recent weeks.

As MobileSyrup notes, citing the Globe and Mail, the government received a report this year from the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence describing how bad actors use Roblox to contact children. The report, while focused on Roblox, kicked off a wider discussion about whether similar risk mechanisms exist in other games where kids talk to strangers, including multiplayer Minecraft.

Minecraft and Roblox in the crossfire

In the parliamentary exchange, Conservative MP Rachael Thomas asked Minister Miller why gaming platforms were excluded from the bill, saying: "Kids spend hours on platforms like Roblox and Minecraft, where grooming and exploitation happen regularly." Miller responded that he takes the remark seriously, adding: "The more you start to behave in that way, the more you attract regulation."

At the same time, the minister clearly separated games from classic social networking sites. He noted that gaming platforms are "a different animal" and shouldn't fall under the same under-16 account ban, acknowledging that gaming is a popular activity among kids that can't simply be blocked the way social media accounts can. This distinction matters for Polish players, who use Minecraft both on Microsoft accounts in Java Edition and on Bedrock Edition on consoles and phones, since it shows that a full ban on the game for younger users isn't currently on the table.

What changes are on the table

Instead of a blanket ban, Miller pointed to a set of softer measures the government is analyzing. Among the proposals mentioned by Canadian media:

  • mandatory, stricter age verification for users,
  • expanded parental control tools made available to guardians,
  • restrictions on communication between accounts of different age groups, especially in chats and private messages.

The minister noted that some platforms are already implementing similar mechanisms, limiting messages and other forms of contact with people under a certain age. Roblox announced its own safety policy shift earlier this year, blocking chats and part of its experiences for accounts under 16 without guardian consent. Minecraft has long offered similar options in the Microsoft account parental panel, allowing players to disable chat or restrict multiplayer play to a list of known friends, which could become a reference point if Canada decides to impose similar standards across all gaming platforms.

The Australian precedent and Conservative doubts

The discussion in Canada is unfolding in the shadow of Australia's experience, which was among the first countries to introduce a ban on social media accounts for people under 16. As reported by iPhone in Canada, after the Australian rules took effect, young users didn't disappear from the internet, they simply moved to smaller, less regulated apps, including Roblox. That's an argument the Conservative opposition is using, asking whether extending the ban to more platforms will actually reduce risk or just push it onto even less supervised services.

According to MobileSyrup, around 40% of Roblox's more than 85 million active users are under 13, which explains why that platform has become the main target of criticism, while Minecraft is mentioned mostly as an example of a game with similar social mechanics and a similarly young player base. For now, no regulations have been finalized, and the government hasn't given a timeline for presenting specific wording for an amendment covering games.

What happens next with the regulations

Miller hasn't said when the government will present the specific wording of amendments to Bill C-34 regarding gaming platforms, or whether Minecraft and Roblox will be treated identically in terms of requirements. What is clear is that a full ban on the game for minors isn't currently being considered, and the discussion is focused on age verification and communication restrictions. For Polish players following this topic, the key question will be whether similar requirements, for instance regarding chat on multiplayer servers, eventually make their way to the European Union, where regulations on protecting minors in online games have been the subject of separate discussions for some time.

Sources