Canada’s first efforts to create an Online Harms Act were described by Twitter as alarmingly similar to those employed by China, North Korea, and Iran.
“People around the world have been blocked from accessing Twitter and other services in a similar manner as the one proposed by Canada by multiple authoritarian governments (China, North Korea, and Iran for example) under the false guise of ‘online safety,’ impeding peoples’ rights to access information online,” it continued.
“Further, there are no checks or balances on the commissioner’s authority, such as the requirement of judicial authorization or warnings to service providers. The government should be extremely mindful of setting such a precedent - if Canada wants to be seen as a champion of human rights, a leader in innovation and in net neutrality globally, it must also set the highest standards of clarity, transparency and due process in its own legislation.”
Twitter’s response was one of many that Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez and his officials were trying to keep secret, but were obtained by law professor Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa through an Access to Information request.
What he found was a far more expansive condemnation of the government’s plan than had previously been assumed based on the “what we heard” report posted by the Heritage Department earlier this year.
The proposed legislation was based on recommendations made in a 2021 Public Policy Forum report funded by the Department of Heritage, then under the guidance of Steven Guilbeault, who is now environment and climate change minister. Calling itself the Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression, it recommended the establishment of a new regulator to oversee content on the internet. The Digital Safety Commission it envisioned would have patrolled the internet for content it deemed to be offensive and had the ability to impose 24-hour takedown notices and swiftly order internet service providers to block access to websites.
The pushback on the recommendations was very close to being unanimously negative, as it turns out.
And, while several cabinet ministers including Rodriguez, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, and Global Affairs Minister Melanie Joly continue to express concern regarding what they believe is widespread disinformation spread on the internet, the submissions from tech companies indicate the problem may not be as severe as the government believes.
Using the first quarter of 2021 as an example, TikTok stated in its submission that less than 1 percent of videos posted violated its community guidelines and 91.3 percent of those were removed prior to anyone filing a complaint.
Michele Austin, Twitter’s public policy manager for Canada and the USA, made the point that sometimes censorship of content deemed problematic simply draws more attention to it.
“Actioning some content can cause it to spread not just on its own terms, but through other channels such as traditional media in their coverage of the actioned content,” Austin wrote in the preamble to Twitter’s submission. “Once this content is amplified “out in the wild” it can take on a life of its own, where individuals may come to believe it based on their personal beliefs rather than whether or not it is true. Sometimes the best course of action is to do nothing.”
As sensible as that approach might be, it’s unlikely the Trudeau government’s obsession with speech and the internet is going to fade away quickly.
It has already introduced an Online Streaming Act that grants the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) dominion over the global internet and authority to regulate all audio and visual content on it, including posts on social media. An act to amend and broaden the nation’s hate speech law and give the Canadian Human Rights Commission authority over internet speech is already underway, and an Online News Act that brings news organizations of which the government approves within the scope of the CRTC was tabled in the House of Commons two weeks ago.
And, undaunted by the wave of opposition, the online harms legislation is still being worked on. This time, Rodriguez has formed yet another expert panel to—my words, not his—help him find a way to suppress speech without anyone noticing.
Hopefully they’ll come up with something a little less North Korean than the previous panel’s recommendations.
