The Canadian government has introduced legislation proposing new regulatory bodies and heavier sentences to combat online abuse, a proposal backed by some U.S. Big Tech firms with major implications for free speech.
Canadian Justice Minister Arif Virani on Monday introduced the Online Harms Act, also known as Bill C-63, to Canada’s legislature for consideration. The act, which has relatively high odds of passage given the Liberal Party’s control of the government, has been presented as a tool for combatting online abuse, forcing Big Tech companies to take additional actions to report child pornography and creating stronger laws for protecting Canadians from hatred online.
“We cannot tolerate anarchy on the internet,” Virani said at a press conference presenting the Online Harms Act. “The safety, the mental health, and even the lives of our kids and our most vulnerable are at stake.”
The Online Harms Act would amend the country’s Criminal Code to increase sentences for spreading hate online and would modify the law to establish a separate offense for crimes motivated by hate. The Canadian Human Rights Act would be amended to allow complaints about online hate to be filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The legislation defines hate speech as “content of a communication that expresses detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals based on prohibited grounds of discrimination.”
The bill would also impose new responsibilities on online platforms to ensure that they assess and report appropriate risks to users and provide tools for flagging harmful content. This includes the creation of a new “authority to centralize mandatory reporting” of hate offenses “through a designated law enforcement body.”
The Liberal Party promised to introduce the measure retaining control in 2021, but have taken longer to act than some have wanted.
Canada’s Conservative Party appears to be opposed to the bill. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre said on Feb. 21 that he won’t accept “Justin Trudeau’s woke authoritarian agenda” and called the Online Harms Act an “attack on freedom of expression.”
At least one Big Tech company has spoken out in favor of the bill. “We support the federal government’s goal of helping young people have safe, positive experiences online and have spent more than a decade developing industry-leading tools and policies to protect them,” Facebook parent company Meta said in a press statement. “We look forward to collaborating with lawmakers and industry peers on our long-standing priority to keep Canadians safe.”
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The bill’s goals echo, to some extent, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Bill and the United States’s Kids Online Safety Act.
The OSB, which required Big Tech companies to take additional actions to address underage access to online pornography, anonymous trolling, scam ads, the sharing of harmful AI-generated images, and the spread of child sexual abuse material, received royal assent in October and is now law. KOSA, which requires online platforms to take steps to prevent a defined set of harms to minors, such as the promotion of suicide and substance abuse, received a filibuster-proof majority of co-sponsors on Feb. 15 and awaits a floor vote.
