Canadian Gov’t Pushes UK’s ‘Online Harms’ Abandonware In Hopes Of Regulating More Speech
from the time-to-tone-down-the-upcountry-degens,-I-guess dept
The UK government spent months trying to pass a bill named the “Online Harms Act.” As opposition mounted — mainly over the many ways the bill would undermine encryption — the UK government decided to rebrand the bill as the kinder sounding “Online Safety Act.” Who could be against “Safety”?
It seemed a bit too on the nose to call a bill capable of harming online interactions the “Online Harms Act.” The same bill resurfaced under a friendlier name: the Online Safety Act. That bill did become law, but not before dumping most of its anti-encryption baggage.
Among the many targets of the UK’s Online Harms/Safety Act was “hate speech.” “Hate speech” would apparently be determined by the eye of the beholder and backed by the UK government. Where that stands now remains to be seen, now that the UK government has decided it won’t order interactive service providers to engage in client-side scanning to prevent the publication of speech the government views as harmful.
Despite concessions, rebranding, and the failure to undermine end-to-end encryption, the UK government still believes it still has a chance to firmly regulate online speech. And, despite these failures and concessions, a UK subordinate is pushing a bill of its own that cops the title the UK government abandoned.
Here’s Michael Taube with the details for the Wall Street Journal:
The 2002 film “Minority Report” depicts a specialized law-enforcement unit called Precrime that relies on information from psychics to apprehend would-be offenders before they can commit crimes. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to have taken this as a suggestion rather than a warning.
On Feb. 26 Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government introduced Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which targets so-called hate speech on the internet. One of its provisions would enable anyone, with the consent of the federal attorney general, to “lay an information before a provincial court judge if the person fears on reasonable grounds that another person will commit” an offense. The judge could then issue a “peace bond” imposing conditions, including house arrest and electronic monitoring, on the defendant merely because it’s feared he could commit a hate crime.
Pre-criming speech is a very dangerous road to go down. But that appears to be the intent of the nascent bill, which would create an avenue for civil complaints that can be pursued by anyone who believes they’ve been hate-crimed on the internet. If the complaint is upheld, the law would allow the Canadian Human Rights Commission to levy fines of $15,000 (USD). On top of that, social media companies found to be “non-compliant” with the Online Harms Act could be hit with additional fines of up to 6% of their “global gross revenue.”
There’s real money on the line here. The bill is still under development, so it’s not immediately clear what’s expected of social media services, nor any definition of what’s clearly “hate speech” and what’s just people being stupid online. As to why service providers should be held accountable for the actions of their users, the bill has yet to explain. And there’s also a life sentence option for violators: “advocating genocide,” which means Canadians should probably limit their pro-Israel comments until the latest Palestine conflict is resolved.
Who’s going to do all of this watching of the internet to ensure no one gets hit with any hate? The bill provides for the erection of an entirely new set of speech police:
The Online Harms Act would introduce not one but three new bureaucracies—a Digital Safety Commission of Canada to “ensure that operators of social media services . . . are transparent and accountable” and “contribute to the development of standards with respect to online safety”; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to “provide support to users . . . and advocate for the public interest in relation to online safety”; and a Digital Safety Office of Canada, which would support the commission and the ombudsperson “in the fulfillment of their mandates.”
Sure, there’s some due process being put in place, but it doesn’t mean much. As the article points out, guilty parties will not need to be proved as such beyond a reasonable doubt. Something less than probable cause will be put in place, ensuring those complaining (or prosecuting) only need to meet the ultra-low bar of “balance of probabilities.”
The bill is still in its early stages, so there’s a chance its shortcomings will be addressed and its vague and ominous aspects refined. Then again, governments seem to believe the internet is in desperate need of direct government intervention and will exploit any useful tragedy to further these efforts. But it hardly seems as though Canada is riddled with online hate speech issues, nor is it under constant threat of attacks by domestic or foreign extremists. This is a bill in search of a problem. And if it isn’t shot down soon, it will become a problem pretending to be a solution.
Filed Under: c-63, canada, free speech, hate speech, online harms, online harms act, pre-crime
Comments on “Canadian Gov’t Pushes UK’s ‘Online Harms’ Abandonware In Hopes Of Regulating More Speech”
Considering the other bills the Justin Trudeau administration passed vis-à-vis the Internet, I think this is going to go down a very dark road.
Have not read the bill, however it sounds like: a “social media” site (that’s at least publicly accessible, account creation could be restricted), but the site is primarily dedicated to logging and discussing “worrying” speech on other site (AKA it will be full of hate speech, though as quotes, and preservation archives), that means users &| owners of the site (or the subset there of that live in Canada) could find themselves under house arrest?
Sounds like a good way to silence a lot of people. And probably to get a lot of websites to geoblock Canada (and put TOS clauses prohibiting Canadians or their government from using the site)
Internet society
On the other hand, the internet society actually likes the bill: https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2024/03/what-governments-can-learn-from-canada-when-regulating-online-harms/
Re:
Oh, it doesn’t affect core operations of the internet itself, so it’s all good! FFS.
Not always perfect, but that org is digging itself a hole to hell now.
Re: Re:
I’d expect things like this from the internet society. They’ve done things in the past that are utterly nonsensical; this doesn’t surprise me.
Re:
How not to do it?
Re:
It strikes me as very strange that Vince Cerf et al. want to destroy the very thing their society is based around. Are they Republican-aligned?
The text of C-63
Also, here is the text of the bill.
If the complaint is upheld, the law would allow the Canadian Human Rights Commission to levy fines of $15,000 (USD).
So that’s be the same CHRC busted for discrimination itself? Good work if you can get it, i guess.
The name “Online Safety Act” was probably stolen from Australia’s own terrible idea.
People pushing for the online child safety acts are actually the immature spoiled brats that they are trying to protect from losing the narrative. It does not have a damn thing to do with children, or online safety at all. All ithas to do with is kicking competition off of the internet. Such concerned parents, communities, schools, and governments where cable and satelite tv, streamming video like netflix have pornography, violence, and horror shows instantly accessible and down loadable by the children that they claim to ve so worried about. It is ludicrous!
“Hey you Whitehouse, Ha Ha Charade you are!” Pink Floyd in referrence to Mary Whitehouse and her clean up tv campaign.When there are strip clubs, bars, and nightclubs all doing these things in the community, and they show it on tv. None of the adults seem too worried about exposing hatered, violence, and sexually inappropriate behavior from my perspective. Has anyone taken a look at this society and childhood education?
Re:
Worried about online hatred but not worried about Wisconsin teachers isolating and restraining children in padded rooms for misconduct. Society is totally asinine!
Re: Re:
it was a bipartisan effort to isolate and restrain children in padded rooms for misconduct, introduced by Republicans because they want to be able to say that they are “tough on crime” and our Democratic Governor Tony Evers was a school superintendent. The teachers union controls the government in Wisconsin. Since the teachers tell the students that they are restraining and isolating ” it’s ok. We are helping you” it is not perceived as hatred. The kids that have been isolated and restrained ended up feeling traumatized, rather than helped, despite the insistance by the teachers that they were helping the isolated restrained students. It was done out of love for the children.
It was a good thing that a lot of the internet regulation was sent to the trash with this one. Before the bill was tabled, I legitimately thought my website was finished. That was thanks to provisions from the 2021 version which said that you have 24 hours to respond to any anonymous complaint or risk a $10 million+ fine. No website in Canada would’ve survived that (at least, not for long).
When the bill was tabled, I was massively relieved to find that provisions like that had been removed.
From my neck of the woods up here in Canada, a huge chunk of the concerns revolve around the potential for secret police investigations, the sweeping powers of the Digital Safety Commission which includes the ability to hold secret hearings as well as the power to make court rulings on top of it all (instead of taking complaints to a real court system) and the sweeping changes to the criminal code (buried towards the end of the bill for those looking into this).
This bill has a LOT of nuance (not surprising given that it’s over 100 pages long) and it can be a tricky read. For example, an “operator” is actually a reference to a social media service, not a regular person running any website.
I did a 3 part write-up on this a while back (recently restored) and here is part 3 if anyone is interested: https://www.freezenet.ca/the-online-harms-bill-bill-c-63-conclusions-and-thoughts/
I think what is confusing some people in all of this is the fact that a lot of us are reading through the bill, saying that there was a lot of improvements, but there are still areas of concern in the bill that slips outside of the area of internet policy (like the Criminal Code, for instance). Some people take that to meaning people like us say it’s fixed and all better or that the government did nothing to actually address any concerns when, in fact, a lot of opinions from observers revolve somewhere between the two extremes.
Then there are those who take things WAY off course and say the bill will jail people for saying stupid things on the internet (there’s provisions in the bill that scope out such speech specifically).
The tricky thing for me, personally, is that I’m not an expert in the Criminal Code of Canada. I know very little about the Human Rights Tribunal and the nitty gritty of the Human Rights Act, so analyzing this legislation became a pretty tricky one – especially thanks to the internet related issues being dealt with already. At the very least, I realized that legal experts from civil rights organizations would probably be better suited to analyzing something like this instead. I may know a lot of things, but my knowledge is by no means inclusive of everything related to law.
As it has always been since 2010 under the Equality Act.
By allowing people discriminated to sue, rendering this act as toothless as the Equality Act and all previous anti-discrimination legislation.
Re:
*discriminated against. Didn’t spot my flub in time, sorry.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to have taken this as a suggestion rather than a warning.”
He is a woke democrat, it is to be expected.