The government is tabling a Digital Safety Act this week. It is expected to be an evolution of last year's Online Harms Act, and this time we are in a very different place. Public support for governance has never been higher, and a new wave of AI products has made the case for guardrails even more urgent. There are four things I will be watching for: 1. Amend the architecture rather than rewrite it. The core model of the Online Harms Act takes the right lessons from UK, the EU, and Australia. It is hybrid approach that creates a strong independant regulator capable of enforcing a duty to act responsibly via risks assessments, transparency requirements and age appropriate design, on platforms (and chatbots - see below). 2. Treat any under-16 access as a pause, not a ban. If the Act includes age restrictions, it must be seen as a temporary measure used to incentivize compliance with the regulations, not as an end in itself. A moratorium that lifts once a platform proves its product is safe puts the burden on companies to fix their design, where a ban leaves it untouched. 3. Bring consumer-facing AI chatbots inside the framework, with obligations built for what they are. Chatbots generate harm directly in private exchanges rather than distributing content that already exists, so the rules should be bespoke to chatbots, not borrowed from social media. 4. Build an innovative regulator with the independence and technical innovation capacity to actually enforce. That means the authority to hire the technical talent the public service rarely attracts and to move closer to the speed of the technology, which a standard institutional template will not deliver. None of this stands on its own. AI is arriving faster, and at greater scale, than the product cycles our institutions were built to govern, and the Digital Safety Act is the first real test of whether Canada's broader AI strategy can keep up. At a moment when trust in government is low, getting this right would be proof that the state can still build important, innovative things, that have the capacity to tackle the harder problems we are on the cusp of. My full argument is here: mediatechdemocracy.com/all-w…

This morning @taylor_owen and Nonso Morah spoke about Canada's new AI strategy on @TheCurrentCBC. Listen now ⬇️ open.spotify.com/episode/1V4…

🎤 @vaillancourt_dr discussed the mental health implications for young people who seek help from AI chatbots during a roundtable discussion on Canada’s digital sovereignty on April 30, 2026. @MediaTechDem @uOttawaResearch 🔊 bit.ly/3PFqdqz 🔗 bit.ly/49hUUZt

I want to thank all the journalists who have covered this research. Just yesterday, CBC Investigates posted a video, connecting the dots of how Dutch internet opportunists, with no skin in the game, are largely behind the production of these videos. youtube.com/watch?v=NXafC7tl…

It has been two weeks since my team released our report titled “Slopaganda: The Inauthentic YouTube Network Selling Secession to Albertans.” I am really proud of this work and how my team at the MEO navigated such an important topic. cdmrn.ca/slopaganda-the-inau…