FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Mon May 3 16:16:09 PDT 2021


https://vancouversun.com/news/full-blown-assault-on-free-expression-inside-the-comprehensive-liberal-bill-to-regulate-the-internet/wcm/4459ada1-997d-4a1c-bd69-eab7ba8b6887
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ndp-open-to-supporting-controversial-broadcasting-bill-amendment-singh

History presents... another SocCom Censorship Program:

After more than 25 years of Canadian governments pursuing a hands-off
approach to the online world, the government of Justin Trudeau is now
pushing Bill C-10, a law that would see Canadians subjected to the
most regulated internet in the free world," argues the Vancouver Sun:
Although pitched as a way to expand Canadian content provisions to the
online sphere, the powers of Bill C-10 have expanded considerably in
committee, including a provision introduced last week that could
conceivably allow the federal government to order the deletion of any
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Twitter upload made by a Canadian. In
comments this week, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh indicated his party was
open to providing the votes needed to pass C-10, seeing the bill as a
means to combat online hate...

The users themselves may not necessarily be subject to direct CRTC
regulation, but social media providers would have to answer to every
post on their platforms as if it were a TV show or radio program. This
might be a good time to mention that members of the current Liberal
cabinet have openly flirted with empowering the federal government to
control social media. In a September Tweet, Infrastructure Minister
Catherine McKenna said that if social media companies "can't regulate
yourselves, governments will." Guilbeault, the prime champion of Bill
C-10, has spoken openly of a federal regulator that could order
takedowns of any social media post that it deems to be hateful or
propagandistic...

Basically, if your Canadian website isn't a text-only GeoCities blog
from 1996, Bill C-10 thinks it's a program deserving of CRTC
regulation. This covers news sites, podcasts, blogs, the websites of
political parties or activist groups and even foreign websites that
might be seen in Canada...

The penalties prescribed by Bill C-10 are substantial. For
corporations, a first offence can yield penalties of up to $10
million, while subsequent offences could be up to $15 million apiece.
If TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are suddenly put in a
situation where their millions of users must follow the same rules as
a Canadian cable channel or radio station, it's not unreasonable to
assume they may just follow Facebook's example [in Australia] and take
the nuclear option.


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