While the CRTC should be receptive to considering all complaints, it should immediately dismiss activist-based demands for censorship. Nobody wants to see literal hate as defined in the criminal code being spread in broadcasts, but a reality check must be applied when it comes to complaints from hypersensitive and unreasonable ideologues. Activists demand cancellation and censorship of outlets and people for the most trivial of perceived transgressions. Even “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling has had to constantly fend off efforts to boycott or ban her books, video games, and related productions because she refuses to deny biological reality—much to the ire of extreme activists.
Issues such as transgender participation in some sports categories or allowing transgender women who still possess functional male genitalia into women’s shelters are heated and need open debate. Activists want to shut down all debate on one side of the issue, and the CRTC is indulging them.
The censorship ability and role conferred upon the CRTC through the government’s Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11) and the Online News Act (Bill C-18) is nuanced, broad, and powerful. The CRTC now has the means and ability to determine what is or isn’t news and who in Canada may view it.
Bill C-11 has given the CRTC authority over streaming content on the internet. Podcasters, YouTube broadcasters, or online video personalities can now be subjected to the same regulations as major broadcasters. The CRTC has the mandate to control internet producers to “safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada.” Under those terms, government-appointed CRTC officials could find an excuse to shut down nearly any online content producer if they choose to. That of course is the intent.
The internet has long been a wild west of information and we have had to live with the good and the bad. It has empowered individuals and citizen journalists in ways unimaginable only 20 years ago. It’s not surprising to see authoritarians trying to control these new channels of communication, but it is sad to see how easily they are getting away with it.
Bill C-18 will work to crush smaller news content producers while putting the larger media outlets even more directly under the thumb of government control. The bill will force social media giants to pay approved media outlets for linking to news content. This clever and odious scheme forces the private market to pay the tab while the government controls who gets the funding. Media outlets that run afoul of the government could suddenly find their accreditation lost, along with their means of income. Content producers will be strongly incentivized to avoid publishing anything critical of the government.
In its role as a censoring body, the CRTC will take it upon itself to determine if a newsroom can “can show it’s a credible news organization.”
The Canadian government has empowered itself to determine what is or isn’t credible news, who will pay for the news, and who is allowed to see that news. Press freedom is being incrementally obliterated while most citizens don’t seem to realize it.
People and producers will find ways around the government censors. Virtual private networks (VPNs) provide a means to bypass controls, and broadcast technology always advances faster than the government can get a handle on it. People should never have to go out of their way to find information unfiltered by the government.
Eventually, the government censorship efforts will fail and collapse. They always do.
Canada’s democracy will be damaged, though, as the cyclical battle between authoritarians and empowered citizens plays itself out.
This is a battle that shouldn’t have to happen.
