Q&A: Keldon Bester wants Ottawa to protect smaller players when implementing C-34

As MPs return to Ottawa for the fall sitting period, the federal government’s proposed Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, is expected to be a focal point. The bill proposes imposing a duty of care on major platforms and would impose an age ban for children under 16. Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, worries the regulations imposed on online platforms could create unsurmountable red tape for smaller players, inadvertently digging a moat around the sector’s monopolies. Bester sat down with The Wire Report to talk about how regulators can ensure smaller players aren’t locked out of the marketplace, and why he thinks the bill misses the mark on some of social media’s most prevalent harms. What are your concerns with Bill C-34? Well I think we’ve got two concerns with C-34. In one sense, the scope is not broad enough and we want to make sure the scope is narrow enough on another dimension. The first thing is, we’re talking about online harms. The big source of harm online is the rise of scams and fraudulent activity, of which the social media services, and particularly the online advertising system, is a pretty big conduit for. So, a big concern we have with C-34 is that it doesn’t speak to these more direct economic harms that are costing Canadians hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The second piece is we want to make sure that this is scoped appropriately such that the companies that have the biggest market share, biggest user bases, and most resources are treated proportionally to that, and that smaller players who don’t qualify for some threshold aren’t caught up entrenched in the position of these players. C-34 as it’s drafted speaks to these thresholds, which I think will be set out in regulation. So that will be an important defensive measure to say these obligations, similar to competition law, they put the highest burden on the companies that make up the most of the activity. While competitors, should they grow to that level, by all means, but we don’t want to lock the door behind them. What do you mean by a lesser burden for smaller players? Less obligations in general, or a smaller fine for infractions? At the simplest level, the legislation should really be focused on the largest platforms. Take the Digital Markets Act in Europe, for example. It has criteria to qualify for a gatekeeper designation, below which the obligations do not apply. So I think an approach like that is desirable. Understanding that this is a bit of a more broad base consideration, these are not just the harms from dominance, it may make sense to have some less drastic measures applied and proportional to the intensity of the issue. But, I think an approach that really hives off the major platforms we’re concerned with, and focuses the efforts accordingly, is important. If they don’t do that, the bill imposes this duty of care approach related to the categories of harmful content. One additional requirement could be the open sourcing of the tools and the approaches that the largest platforms use, such that a smaller platform, if it does apply to them, has less of a hurdle to overcome to meet those obligations. But I do really think the bill as written should be tailored to focus on these very large online platforms that make up the vast majority of activity online. So something like a user threshold, revenue threshold, what have you. What kind of hurdles do you envision smaller platforms facing? We have the duty to act responsibly, exposure to harmful content, synthetic content, and the flagging and blocking system. The concern is the standard for that duty puts it out of reach for companies beyond a certain resource level. The question really comes down to who ultimately falls under the concept of a regulated service, and what kind of obligations are applied to those folks. If we have an onerous technical burden, then smaller platforms are not going to be able to comply, or choose not to comply and pull out of the market. To meet this duty, what burden are we imposing? Is that burden being imposed proportional to the relevance of a platform to the market and to the capacity of that platform to actually implement these systems? How do we have a safer social media environment without shutting the door on future competition that could compete on the basis of a less toxic environment? Are you concerned that exempting smaller services would enable them to become hubs for online harms and bad actors? You’re in a situation where if something gets so popular as a result, then it itself could qualify. But the tension with regulation frequently is how do we maintain standards while not pulling up the draw bridge for anyone to actually participate in the market so we are only left with the major players. To flip it, if this is applied evenly, you run the risk of creating a situation where only the largest platforms are able to meet these obligations and alternative platforms end up going away, whether or not they’ve become these hubs. The thing I would add to that is, I think the concept this is speaking to is we enjoy these platforms but there is a side effect to being on them, which is the dangers and harms that arise from them. So the idea that there is a competing platform that is quite small and its competitive quality is that it's a bit of a cess pit, is a different problem. We want to create a situation where someone can be online in these spaces that are really a part of our communications system and that they have some recourse against these issues. Places that are truly vile will continue to be so and continue to exist on the fringe whether or not there is legislation. So in that sense, I want good actor platforms who want to create safe spaces and who want to actually offer a healthy environment to be able to succeed and not have a giant compliance burden before they can even get off the ground. To go back to your earlier point, do you think the bill is too focused on children? We don’t become immune to harm when we turn 18. I think children are a unique case, and one in particular where we need to, like in many areas of life, create special obligations. I think it's less that they are too focused on it and more that I’m worried we might miss an opportunity to make the online experience better for all of us, especially when we consider this economic angle. One of the groups that is the most frequently victimized by scams are the elderly. If we proceed with a bill that is predominantly focused on children, I think there’s a lot of good that can come out of that, but we will have left unanswered some questions that actually could have been addressed because they are so tightly intertwined with the same systems we’re talking about here. The same platforms that deliver this content are fundamentally intended to distribute online advertising and collect a phenomenal amount of data about all of those interacting with the platform, creating a pretty ripe target ground for scammers. I think the focus on children is understandable, but we shouldn’t miss an opportunity to make online safer for all of us. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. mcollins@thewirereport.ca

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Q&A: Keldon Bester wants Ottawa to protect smaller players when implementing C-34

Regulatory | By Maria Collins |September 25, 2026

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Regulatory |
By Maria Collins
|September 25, 2026