How governments want to censor the internet
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Summary
When pushing back against the forces of censorship, and the autocratic tendencies that governments can drift towards, it's important to look outside of the country, especially to Europe where history has shown Canada is anywhere from 5-10 years behind or even quicker on a number of key issues. No more apparent is this than with the regulation of the internet.
Transcript
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A couple of weeks ago I sounded the alarm about a proposal from Canada's
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Justice and Human Rights Committee that would have a chilling effect on free
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speech. The proposal, one of many recommendations in the committee's
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report, was that social media companies effectively must become state enforcers
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of what the government determines hate speech is, removing content and banning
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users or risking running afoul of the Human Rights Commission in Canada. When
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pushing back against the forces of censorship and the autocratic tendencies
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that governments can drift towards, it's important to look outside of the country,
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especially to Europe where history has shown Canada is anywhere from five to ten
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years behind or even quicker on a number of key issues. No more apparent is this
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than with the regulation of the internet. A couple of examples here. Number one,
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France, which is not known as a hotbed of freedom of speech, is looking at a
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regulation very similar to the proposed revival of Section 13 of the Canadian
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Human Rights Act, regulating the internet. France will debate a bill that will stop
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online hate speech and basically this would make it mandatory for online
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platforms to remove hateful content in less than 24 hours. And unfortunately there
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is still a lack of a cohesive definition of what this hateful content is. Sure,
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everyone can agree that terrorist promotion or willful promotion of genocide
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should be removed from networks, but what about other forms of speech that are
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deemed by one body to be intolerant but by another to be open debate or
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reprehensible but still free speech? These are the questions and this is why it's
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worth looking at these proposals because nowhere has anyone been able to come up
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with a boundary here apart from what we have already, especially in Canada. But
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then we look at an even more concerning white paper in the United Kingdom, something
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that may become the precursor to legislation if it's adopted by the
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government. It's called the Online Harms White Paper. Make no mistake, this
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document is not about harm reduction but rather the reduction of freedom,
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specifically freedom of speech on the internet. And the report twists itself into knots to
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justify this. It says that social media companies, even though they are private
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enterprises, are actually like public spaces. Meaning there's no difference
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between what you can do in the town square versus what you can do on your own
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private Facebook page or even website. That seems to be the inference that one can
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draw from this quite accurately. The report says that because social media
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companies and other digital platforms are now public spaces, they have a duty of care
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they must offer. Something that goes beyond the existing terms and conditions. And what's
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a part of this duty of care? Not only taking down what the government deems offending content
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is, but even providing resources and support to users who have suffered harm. So does this
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mean that if someone is offended by something that you post on Facebook that a company is
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required to provide that person resources or support? Well they're not going to want to take the loss of it.
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So what does that mean will happen to you? Well here is the devil in the details. The plan will
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actually call for the creation of a regulator that will have the power to issue fines. To
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issue fines and to disrupt the business activities of a non-compliant company. So all
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of a sudden we're talking about a very body that exists for the sole purpose of
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making sure that social media companies are enforcing government speech rather than free
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speech. And again I want to say that I am not a defender of big tech. These companies make a lot of
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decisions that I don't agree with, but they are their decisions to make, not the government's. This is
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chilling on its own, but contextually there's a great deal of relevance and things that are
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happening in the United Kingdom. I'm actually heading tonight to the United Kingdom to cover Tommy
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Robinson's contempt of court hearing. A hearing that came about because he was posting on Facebook
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content about a trial. This is a free speech issue even if you don't agree with the application of
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free speech by Tommy Robinson. The question of where you draw that line is at stake in this hearing.
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Moreover, next week I'm going to be covering in the United Kingdom the Global Conference on Media
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Freedom, a summit co-hosted by Canada and the United Kingdom in London that is going to be promoting
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the idea of a free press and by extension freedom of speech by the press and by media across the world.
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But the freedom of press isn't just about allowing the New York Times and the Toronto Star and the UK
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independent free speech. It's about free speech for everyone. For someone to blog about an issue,
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post about it on Facebook, create a video, do exactly what I'm doing now. So on one hand we have the United
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Kingdom in Canada saying that we are going to promote this idea of global press freedom, but on the other
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hand you have both the UK and Canada weighing proposals that would regulate internet speech based on
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murky and ill-defined or completely undefined ideas. This is why True North is standing up for these issues.
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Governments do not get a pass just because they want to lump everything they can under this broad
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umbrella of hate speech just to justify censorship. That's what's at risk here if we don't fight back
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against this. We're doing this, we're in this fight, but we don't have the big $600 million check that the
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mainstream media in Canada is getting or the $1.3 billion that CBC gets. Our money comes from you,
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$25, $50, $100 at a time. If you can support our efforts, either the UK mission or our broader work
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please do. There's a link in the description box. You can head on over to tnc.news, click donate
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and lend us a hand. For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.