Manitoba Teachers’ Society reacts to province banning social media, AI chatbot platforms for children

The Manitoba Teachers Society is weighing in on the announcement by Premier Wab Kinew over the weekend regarding a ban on social media for children, but some teachers think it might not be so simple.

“A broad ban on these tools, I don’t think, is the answer. I think we need to be teaching students how to use social media. How to use AI in a proper way because it’s here to stay and they’ll be facing it for the rest of their lives,” said Lillian Klausen, the president of the Manitoba Teachers Society.

Klausen has 35 years of teaching experience and she agrees with the concerns the province has with social media, but has reservations about the ban.

“Our real concern really is the policies and procedures that we’re going to need to put in place to be able to realize some of the goals that the provincial government has,” said Klausen.

Premier Kinew said, “I think we’ll work with school divisions. I think one of the things we want to work with are our teachers. Like YouTube. Maybe used today, would not be allowed after this ban. And so teachers will need to get ready, school leaders will need to get ready.”

CityNews reached out to all six school divisions in the city. A statement from the Winnipeg School Division reads, “WSD will work cooperatively with the provincial government to ensure that any use of social media and AI platforms is consistent with legislation.”

However, Klausen says, “When tools become more and more mainstream in society that there are lots of companies that come up with lots of tools and strategies in teaching things we can use in the classroom to help with students and to help with learning. Tools for reading, tools for numerous. These are types of tools for teachers, if they see an advantage for certain students with certain needs, can certainly implement into a classroom.”

Premier Kinew explained, “If we have a hypothetical teacher in Manitoba, who has developed a proprietary AI that lives on a local computer, ok we could talk about that. But if you’ve built a front end powered by an API connected to Chat GPT. Then no. We should not be feeding our children’s data to Sam Altman so he can make another billion dollars.”