Professor Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa in a recent blog post shared a trove of submissions from the Government of Canada’s online harms consultation that had previously not been made public.
Included are submissions from Twitter, TikTok, Microsoft, Pinterest, the Business Software Alliance, and more, all heavily criticizing the government’s plans. Even Canada’s largest telecom companies (Bell, Rogers, Telus, Cogeco, Quebecor, and Shaw) provided a joint submission.
Only a fraction of consultation submissions were actually made public by Canadian Heritage, while the rest were never disclosed — until now. Geist was able to acquire these submissions by filing an Access to Information Act request to compel disclosure by law of the consultation submissions.
Geist’s request took months to process but netted him a 1,162-page file containing hundreds of consultation submissions that previously hadn’t seen the light of day.
According to the University of Ottawa professor, this broader package of consultation submissions goes to show that the government was determined to keep the majority of submissions hidden from the public eye until legally compelled to release them, that a lot more internet platforms participated in the consultation than previously disclosed, and that feedback on the government’s plans was overwhelmingly negative.
The most notable submission came from Twitter, Geist noted, which warned that the proactive monitoring of content proposed by the government:
“sacrifices freedom of expression to the creation of a government run system of surveillance of anyone who uses Twitter. Even the most basic procedural fairness requirements you might expect from a government-run system such as notice or warning are absent from this proposal. The requirement to ‘share’ information at the request of Crown is also deeply troubling.”
Twitter went on to blast the government’s website blocking plans, likening it to China, North Korea, and Iran:
The proposal by the government of Canada to allow the Digital Safety Commissioner to block websites is drastic. 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.
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.
The plans were even opposed by groups that might have been expected to support the proposal, including the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, the National Association of Friendship Centres, the Safe Harbour Outreach Project, and the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has agreed to re-assess the government’s planned online harms policy with a new expert panel, rebranding the proposal as “online safety.” However, Geist says “the entire consultation process is an absolute embarrassment to the government.”
Despite massive pushback from internet platforms and social groups, the federal government is still marching forward with what Geist calls “anti-internet policies” in Bill C-11, which seeks to regulate online content, and Bill C-18, which will force internet giants to pay for links to Canadian news outlets.
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When even twitter thinks you’ve crossed a line with trying to censor speech and dictate right-think, you should take that as a hint. But, Justin knows he’s right in trying to decide what Canadians are allowed to say, see and hear.
Papa-Castro would be proud though.
He’ll be the first one to implement mandatory word filter like “man” and “mankind” “ gingerbread man”
I wonder if his Ministry Of Information would allow Canadians to publicly discuss thoughts like
“Trudeau caught in blackface again”, “Trudeau caught on camera bodychecking female MP that spoke back to him”,
“Trudeau forces out two brightest female cabinet members for a disagreeing with him”,
“Trudeau and Putin both send their riot police after peaceful protestors within days of each other”,
“Trudeau and Putin use identical arguments for restricting citizen speech and free access to information”,
“Justin burned enough jet fuel to fly around the world 3 times while travelling in the last 10 months. Eco-hypocrite”,
“Woman accuses Justin of groping her, Justin questions her memory”,
“Justin Trudeau says wearing masks is useless and anti-science”,
“Trudeau says vaccines prevent covid”,
“Trudeau family caught in another ethical/financial/conflict scandal. PM blocks investigation”,
“PM says money is free and the economy will balance itself”,
“Trudeau most admires Chinese dictatorship style of government”.
Then again, with the Canadian media obediently burying such stories, he doesn’t really need his goon squad to censor these ones.
You alt righters slay me.
you braindead slay yourself
Once more in a recognized language.
His name is Ben Dover. Seems to be his own personal call to action. When Justin says grab your ankles for yet another way to screw Canadians, Ben seems like one who would be pre-positioned and eager to convince others to assume the position.
You’ll notice that he views anyone that questions Dear Leader as an alt-right fascist because common sense and nuance are foreign concepts to him.
What do you think was said here that justifies the label of alt-right? I don’t see anything even close. Are you sure you didn’t mean to say you just didn’t agree with it?
Too funny, crawl back under the bridge with the other alt right trolls.
In followup to your response:
But why don’t you actually support your accusations though instead of just laughing in your own ignorance? I am not necessarily saying you are wrong but just that you haven’t given a reason to think you are right and if you’re going to label people like this you should probably be able to justify it or expect that others will ignore what you say. If I started labeling you without evidence like this, which I would not do and really would be embarrassed to do, I would also expect others not to listen unless they could determine I actually knew what I was talking about – as I am requesting of you now.
Still waiting for him to force the change to Persontoba so I can mock my Lieberal friend in Winnipeg.
internet should be a open free place, unfiltered like the wild
When even the censors at twitter accuse you of censorship…..you know you have gone too far.
This is a great comment haha
i didn’t vote for Justin, did you? stop enabling these peoples….
Imagine being Justin, where you make one blunder and foolish decision after another, over and over again, yet you still are able to enact your new flawed policies without difficulty and get away with it each and every time. This has been the story of Justin since entering politics well over a decade ago: The one who always gets his way.
One thing he’s learned to do well is propaganda. He’s bought and paid for the media through his various funding programs. He was able to use WE as a personal promotion machine, conditioning millions of children to be obedient groupies, now voting age adults. He hired some of the same people that developed Cambridge Analytica, which was made famous for being able to use harvested social media data to manipulate at a population level, to work with his campaigns.
In any free speech environment there will always be abusers. But it’s not a reason for a government to abridge that right for the general population.
If you thought silencing peaceful protesters, evoking emergengy act on fringe minorities and freezing bank accounts of any suspected to be involved was bad, that’s just the start. Justin is turning canada into his beloved chinese dictator model but seems majority of canadians are too busy drinking his delicious coolaid to realize what’s happening. I wouldn’t be surprised if they implement social credit system soon.