OTTAWA — The federal government tabled its long-awaited online harms bill on Monday which is already shaping up to become a delicate political battle over freedom of expression on the internet, while also aiming to provide more protections for children.
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Bill C-63 aims to force social-media, user-uploaded adult content and live-streaming services to reduce exposure to online content deemed harmful, to strengthen the reporting of child pornography and to better address hate propaganda and provide recourse to victims of hate online.
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It also amends the Criminal Code to create a new standalone hate crime offence that would allow penalties up to life imprisonment to deter hateful conduct, as well as raise the maximum punishments for hate propaganda offences from five years to life imprisonment for advocating genocide.
“I'm the father of two youngsters and, like parents and grandparents around Canada, I'm terrified by the dangers that lurk on the internet for our children,” said Justice Minister Arif Virani Monday, as the Liberals unveiled the bill.
“I'm also a Muslim. The hatred that festers online is radicalizing people and that radicalization has real world impacts for my community, and for so many other communities,” added Virani.
Harmful content is defined in the legislation as content that incites violence, that foments hatred, that incites violent extremism or terrorism, is used to bully a child, that sexually victimizes a child, that induces a child to harm themselves, or intimate content communicated without consent.
The bill also creates a new Digital Safety Commission, which will be responsible for enforcing rules and holding online services accountable, as well as a separate Digital Safety Ombudsperson, which will support and advocate for users and make recommendations to social media services and the government.
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Online services will be forced to remove two categories of content: intimate content communicated without consent such as “revenge porn” or content that sexually victimizes a child or re-victimizes a survivor of child sexual abuse.
Users of these online services will be able to either flag the content directly on the online service or file a complaint to the Digital Safety Commission. Both channels would screen any frivolous flags or complaints and then result in the removal of the content within 24 hours, subject to review.
The legislation also forces online services to adopt special protections for children, such as parental controls, content warning labels for children or automatic disabling of certain features.
Finally, online services will have to continuously assess, mitigate and report on the risk to users posed by their services, provide tools to flag content and block users and create an internal point of contact for user complaints. It will also have to identify measures taken to reduce exposure to harmful content.
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Online services that do not abide by the rules could be subject to severe penalties as high as six per cent of global revenue or $10 million, whichever is greater.
Not all online services are covered under this legislation as only those that are above a certain threshold of users which will be set out in regulation. Private and encrypted messaging services, such a direct messaging and emails, are also excluded.
The bill amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to specify that posting hate speech online is discrimination, to empower people to file complaints against individuals posting hate speech at the Canadian Human Rights Commission and to create a process for assessing hate speech complaints.
Government officials confirmed that the legislation is reinstituting some of the powers under the previous Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act — which was repealed by former prime minister Stephen Harper's government in 2013 — but they say it will take into account some of the criticism over curtailing free speech. The controversial section had prohibited any speech “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” and was criticized for being too broad and resulting in censorship of contentious opinions.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week the upcoming bill would be specifically focused on making the internet safer for children, not on censoring it. But Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has already signalled his party would be opposing Trudeau's “latest attack on freedom of expression.”
“I want to be crystal clear about what the Online Harms Act does not do,” said Virani. “It does not undermine freedom of speech. It enhances free expression by empowering all people, to safely participate in online debate.”
“We know that there are powerful organizations and people that may line up against this legislation, people with money and people with influence. My message to these people and these organizations is very simple: it is now the time to work directly with us. Profit cannot be prioritized over safety.”
An earlier version of the bill, C-36, was introduced in 2021, but died shortly afterward, when an election was called. The government was planning to legislate on five categories of online harms, such as content inciting violence, the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, child exploitation, hate speech and content promoting terrorism.
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At the time, the bill was heavily criticized by privacy experts and civil liberties groups for giving social media platforms only 24 hours to remove any content deemed harmful, or face punishment, potentially infringing on freedom of expression by encouraging companies to take down acceptable materials.
Islamic organizations such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims expressed concern that efforts to target terrorism-related content online could disproportionately affect their members.
As a result, the government went back to the drawing board and announced in spring of 2022 the creation of a new expert advisory group on online safety to guide them in the next steps for legislation targeting harmful online content, while respecting freedom of expression.
On Monday, Government House leader Steven MacKinnon said every MP had personal stories to tell relating to constituents concerned for their children about online threats.
“As a parent, as someone who represents, as we all do, parents who speak to us all the time about these dangers and how they apprehend and how they watch their children sometimes go through horrible experiences online, I think any responsible government has to act,” he told reporters.
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“We think that this response is a much more comprehensive and meaningful response to the dangers posed online than the bill that he supports,” he said of the online harms bill. “It's pretty cynical for Mr. Poilievre to be opposing this bill when he says he wants to protect children.”
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the online harms legislation was long overdue given that the government promised to introduce it 100 days after the 2021 election.
“Of course, we support action to keep kids safe online. We know that there's so much danger and harm happening to kids online and we want to prevent that. Of course, we'll look at the details of the legislation, but this general principle is something that we support,” he said.
The Bloc Québécois also said it would take the time to analyze the bill before deciding whether to support it.
National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com
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