[HN Gopher] Ottawa to create regulator to hold platforms account...
___________________________________________________________________
Ottawa to create regulator to hold platforms accountable for
harmful content
Author : segasaturn
Score : 54 points
Date : 2024-02-26 16:20 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| mcsniff wrote:
| The Ministry of Truth.
|
| A bit hyperbolic, but the West really has fallen.
| segasaturn wrote:
| Absolute freedom of speech is solely an American tradition.
| Speech regulation has always been the norm in the west.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| That's what Russian Government says all the time. According
| to them, speech is free in Russia, they just have some
| reasonable limitations.
| neom wrote:
| Canada in fact has quite deep restrictions on speech:
|
| https://ccla.org/our-work/fundamental-freedoms/freedom-of-
| ex...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Canad.
| ..
|
| It's one thing I think we do particularly poorly compared to
| our friends down South. The Americans' absolute freedom of
| speech is... quite freeing.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| > an American tradition
|
| So also is silencing speech it doesn't like. Easy examples
| like the book banning taking place in states like florida and
| the ag-gag laws.
| AustinDev wrote:
| Just curious because I've heard the 'book banning in
| Florida' ad nauseum. I've got a Miami server I can proxy
| through. Can you send me an Amazon link of a book I can buy
| in Texas but cannot buy in Florida? I'd like to test this
| out.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| "Book Banning" is always to be taken with a grain of
| salt. What typically happens is that a school library is
| not permitted to have copies of books considered
| inappropriate for children of a certain age.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Ok, try going to this florida school library and check
| out an encyclopedia or Anne Frank's diary. You can't
| because they were banned by a government law.
|
| You may counter with, this isn't a book ban because you
| can still buy it on amazon and that the government is
| supposed to moderate content in schools. But when
| 'moderation' becomes this absurdly broad, its a ban.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/11/florida-
| scho...
| AustinDev wrote:
| Looking at the press release it appears to me that this
| is a form of 'Malicious Compliance' it only makes sense
| in that context. If you are an administrator or librarian
| and disagree with the law, you would want to 'ban' the
| most absurd list of books. You do this for two reasons:
| 1. So they can print the headline in the article you
| linked 2. So that when the case challenging this law
| inevitably goes to trial the lawyers can cite the absurd
| examples on your 'banned book' list.
|
| It often times helps to think critically about who
| benefits from an action when you see something as
| blatantly ridiculous as a dictionary being 'banned'.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Ironically I think this is the point. The government
| deliberately made the law very general so they could cast
| a broad net and remove all of the bad-think books through
| the magic of selected enforcement. The malicious
| compliance was used to highlight this and the difference
| between 'protecting the children' and the policing of
| thoughts and ideas (always the root of censorship).
| csande17 wrote:
| I'm at the middle school library you mentioned, and it's
| even worse than you made it sound. They aren't letting me
| check out ANY books at all; something about "not being a
| student here"? They said I could try the public library,
| which is open to everyone and not controlled by the
| school district.
| matrix_overload wrote:
| Freedom of speech works as a mechanism to maintain
| decentralized power. If there are multiple sources of power
| interested in preserving their own shares of power, they end up
| agreeing on fair mechanisms of resolving conflicts. Like
| arguing your case in a court vs. sending an assassin, or
| discussing different viewpoints in a civilized manner rather
| than waiting than the party-chosen one goes into the extreme,
| and evokes an equally extreme counteraction.
|
| Power in the West has been centralizing for decades now.
| Information society and low interest rates have been catalyzing
| this even more. It is inevitable than hard-fought-for freedoms
| will fall, followed by an economic collapse, splintering, and a
| slow crystallization of new sources of power over the courses
| of centuries. Empires fall. History repeats. Humans are
| humans...
| mistermann wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
|
| It's funny how resistant humans are to learning from history.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| To their credit, Canadian regulators have in the past gotten
| stuff done in this area. Back in 2010 Canada was instrumental in
| getting Facebook to implement basic privacy protections. More
| often than not, the big online platforms internally know that
| regulation has to happen. Whichever country first comes up with a
| standard for "reasonable" in an area tends to see that standard
| mirrored by other countries struggling with the same issue. The
| online platforms would love to say that they are already in
| compliance with the Canadian standard when they inevitably have
| to negotiate new standards for the US and Europe.
| smallbluedot wrote:
| Goddamn my government is absolutely pathetic.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| That sounds like a very bad idea. Why does it need to be
| implemented when there are already existing mechanisms in place
| to hold criminals accountable for their actions?
| matrix_overload wrote:
| Because a whole generation doesn't care about their financial
| well-being, affording kids, retirement, or any kind of future
| plans. They are happy, as long as they have a petty emotion-
| driven control over what others will be allowed to say or
| think. And the government is happy to deliver...
| betaby wrote:
| While this is true. It's also true that all above and
| manufacture and conditioned for awhile.
| iosystem wrote:
| I'm surprised you're being downvoted when almost all the lack
| of infrastructure for the future of Canadian youth doesn't
| just hint at what you're expressing, but instead screams it.
| Almost all politicians in Canada are landlords, multiple
| property holders, and have decided that what's best for
| Canada is increasing immigration, where young-born Canadians
| are having their wages suppressed because of it.
| Additionally, they are locked into living with their parents
| because rent has skyrocketed to absurd levels for just a
| small studio apartment. All for the benefit of the existing
| established boomer generation.
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| What I didn't see mentioned in this article is what "harm" means
| in this context. My pessimistic view is that the govt will define
| harm as they see fit.
| neom wrote:
| Harmful speech has been fought and settled over a long period
| of time in Canada, and there is a lot of case law around in it,
| it's governed by Canada's criminal code.
|
| https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-319.ht...
|
| It's expected the new bill will be based on this, we won't
| really know the implications till case law is settled.
| cperciva wrote:
| _Hate_ speech has a lot of case law around it.
|
| The fact they're inventing a new term "harmful speech" makes
| me think they're trying to avoid that case law.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| It does sound like a weasel word, like "assault weapon".
| faeriechangling wrote:
| His plan to me doesn't read as narrowly focused on hate
| speech.
| jjice wrote:
| - Who decides what constitutes "harmful"? Some things will be
| able to be agreed upon by man, but some won't.
|
| - So every platform needs serious moderation teams? I absolutely
| believe that major platforms should, but what if I have a blog
| and someone doxxes someone in the comments? Am I responsible now?
| So we're going to crush independent sites because they can't
| afford moderation from serious spam?
|
| I don't know, this is a tricky subject but I can't see this
| working well.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Who decides what constitutes "harmful"?
|
| Government. The same people who set speed limits, tell pilots
| they cannot drink while flying and decide which drugs are too
| dangerous to sell in vending machines. Don't like it? Vote in
| someone different.
|
| In Canada, that will mean a committee which will take public
| and industry input, talk to victims and consult with law
| enforcement. They will set some rules, along with a complaints
| and appeals process probably headed by an ombudsman of sorts.
| If Canadians don't like it, they will either tell their
| government to change things or elect a new one that will. It is
| almost like someone had designed a system so that a few people
| could represent the will of the population without everyone
| having to break out the pitchforks.
| johngladtj wrote:
| So you agree with the widespread censorship in China, the
| Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, etc...?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Despite what Fox News says, Canada is not the Soviet Union.
| it is a functional liberal democracy full of checks and
| balances with a government subject to regular elections.
| canadiantim wrote:
| Actually Canada doesn't have that many checks and
| balances. Yes we have regular elections (not fixed dates
| tho). Currently we have a minority government acting like
| a majority government and in the Canadian system a
| majority government is as close to a dictatorship as a
| democracy allows for, in that the government is relied on
| to investigate itself, which of course yields nothing.
| There are no checks and balances except an election a few
| times a decade.
| neom wrote:
| ...What about the Senate?? It regularly rejects bills and
| sends them back.
| canadiantim wrote:
| My impression is the Senate doesn't actually regularly
| reject bills. They have, but its few and far between. The
| Senate also isn't really independent as they're appointed
| by party in power and vote in groups whipped by their
| leaders. Even recent development under Trudeau who
| "released" all liberal senators from being Liberal
| Senators such that now they sit as "independent"
| senators, but they all still vote in a one big block that
| votes exactly the same way as the liberal senator group,
| they just changed names. There are, however, a couple
| more splinter groups with specialized interests in the
| senate because of the shuffle, which is good to see, but
| by and large the Senate is very ineffective at being a
| check and balance. Mostly it's a rubber stamp process
| unless it's particularly egregious then it's a wrist slap
| asking for minor changes. Hence decades of debate on
| reforming or even abolishing the senate, which has been a
| mainstream debate for a long time and still ongoing.
| neom wrote:
| https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/legislat
| ion...
|
| Here's the data. Seems like they're doing a fine job to
| me.
| canadiantim wrote:
| The data backs up what I was saying. Very few bills are
| rejected by the senate. Most of what you are seeing are
| bills that died in place because parliament was either
| prorogued by the liberal government or an election was
| called resulting in the dissolution of parliament, not
| because the Senate actually rejected those bills.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| > functional liberal democracy full of checks and
| balances with a government subject to regular elections
|
| It's more nuanced than that.
|
| The current system can easily result in surprisingly
| disproportionate representation in the House of Commons.
|
| Look at the results of the most recent federal election,
| for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_
| federal_election
|
| A party that received 32.62% of the popular vote got 160
| seats in the House of Commons, while another party that
| received 33.74% of the vote got only 119 seats.
|
| A party that received only 7.64% of the votes got 32
| seats, while another party that received 17.82% of the
| vote got only 25 seats.
|
| A party that received 2.33% of the votes got 2 seats,
| while another party that received 4.94% of the vote got
| no seats.
|
| With a votes-to-seats situation like that, there are a
| lot of Canadians who don't have proper representation in
| the House of Commons, or in some cases, effectively none
| at all.
|
| It's no surprise that the voter turnout wasn't even 63%;
| many Canadians are completely disillusioned with how the
| current system works, and don't feel that any of the
| parties can offer them meaningful representation.
|
| Canada's political system does exhibit some democratic
| traits, but there are still some pretty serious and
| fundamental flaws with the current approach that can't be
| ignored, either.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Well to be fair; China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
| all had governments that were not as restrictive(or
| restrictive in different ways) before those factions came
| into power.
|
| Perhaps the current government of Canada feels that it is
| impossible for a more repressive party to come into power.
| I think that I heard the same thing about Trump before he
| was elected(as in no way could the USA elect someone that
| crazy).... I hope that when Canada does get an extremist,
| they are not the type to kill people in the streets.
| morkalork wrote:
| Canada has already had some insanely regressive
| governments in the past and there was little in the way
| to stop the at the time. Religious, Christian,
| authoritarians were usually behind the oppression too.
|
| One not often talk about example is unmarried pregnant
| women were forced to give up their babies for "morality"
| reasons. "Some 600,000 Canadian babies were labelled
| "illegitimate" between 1945 and 1971, and it is estimated
| that between 300,000 and 450,000 babies were given up for
| forced adoption during this period."*
|
| Heck, if you were the wrong kind of Christian, you could
| be persecuted. Jehovah's Witnesses were banned during WW2
| and afterwards, in Quebec, distributing their literature
| was an offence because it attacked the Catholic Church.
|
| * https://globalnews.ca/news/4342569/forced-adoption-
| unmarried...
| vimota wrote:
| The difference are that all of those are pre-determined, so
| you know what violates the rule. Holding platforms
| accountable for "harmful" content is much more subjective and
| case-by-case than a speed limit, drinking and driving and
| ingredient rules.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| As opposed to all the other content rules out there? The
| limits on harmful pornography? Hate speech? Violence?
| Animal cruelty? Western governments already regulate/censor
| lots of content subject to interpretation. Balling those
| together under the banner of "harmful" for the purposes of
| regulating online platforms doesn't seem much of a stretch.
| Aerroon wrote:
| The implementation of those other regulations is a reason
| to be against this. Platforms are usually very heavy-
| handed with moderation of those. Look at how people are
| on their tiptoes on YouTube and TikTok. Content creators
| straight up refuse to use common words because it _might_
| trigger an algorithm. And that isn 't even due to
| government regulation.
| ravenstine wrote:
| What you are suggesting is only plausible under a system
| where every official, institution, and policy can be voted
| on, and with said entities having no significant sway over
| each other. That's not how Canada or America works, and
| perhaps no government in existence.
|
| > It is almost like someone had designed a system so that a
| few people could represent the will of the population without
| everyone having to break out the pitchforks.
|
| That hardly works in practice. Why would it? Government
| officials are not afraid of minuscule uprisings. The ability
| to actually rebel is not present in the average western human
| being today.
| pksebben wrote:
| We absolutely have the tech to implement direct democracy
| in an efficient and effective manner. The fact that we
| haven't is pure evidence that Democracy (tm) doesn't
| actually do what it says on the label.
| ipaddr wrote:
| In Canada a political appointee of the left will take the
| position. It will be used to whitewash opinions in favour of
| government positions and try to extract money from US
| companies.
|
| Canadians won't like it but the media will push it so far as
| no one will be allowed to be elected without supporting it.
| More laws further limiting criticizing will be passed where
| the punishment is longer than murder.
|
| The pitchforks are coming.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| How could the media in Canada push the government's agenda?
| It's not as though they depend on the government for
| funding, access, or legislation to keep them in business
| and competitors from gaining a foothold.
| canadiantim wrote:
| The current government in Canada is the lowest in the polls
| they've been since they were almost relegated to 3rd-party
| status in the 2015 election. This move is nothing more than a
| cynical attempt to prevent criticism (they're notoriously
| image-conscious and thin-skinned) and control the narrative.
| CountSessine wrote:
| The thin end of the wedge. The epistemic supply-chain needs
| grooming to achieve information purity.
|
| If you support this idiocy, let me assure you that eventually it
| will be used against you when the Wrong sort of people are in
| power.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Not all speech in Canada is protected, and never has been. Even
| in the US, there are (albeit far more narrow) carve-outs for
| "harmful" speech (best not yell "fire" in a movie theatre or
| "bomb" in an airport).
|
| Nobody has been or ever will be jailed for talking about the
| FLQ crisis and internet searches for pictures of tanks on
| Canadian streets aren't banned from search engines, but I guess
| people can go off on their China and USSR comparisons.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| The problem of holding platforms accountable for enforcing
| this is a chilling effect: speech that wouldn't be restricted
| _even by the government_ gets taken down by the platforms as
| a proactive measure, to err on staying on the right side of
| the law. This is especially true of speech with nuance. (See
| GPT & Gemini's heavy-handed self-censorship as an example).
|
| Nobody will be jailed, their posts will just be hidden or
| removed for non-compliance with the restrictive terms of the
| private platform.
| jszymborski wrote:
| It's a great reason to leave these platforms for more
| intentional ones with moderation teams you trust.
|
| Community run Mastodon and Bluesky servers are a dime a
| dozen. Forums are seeing a bit of a resurgence.
|
| If this makes the big corpo social networks less fun and
| cool to be on, then bring it on!
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| It is, and it would be nice if it worked out that way,
| but the dynamics of two-sided markets are really sticky.
| You need more than a strong incentive, because your
| audience needs to come along too. And even federated
| platforms might find they don't want to hold the hot
| potato of legal accountability, and block Canadian IPs
| rather than try to ensure their moderation meets the
| Canadian government's standards.
| jszymborski wrote:
| And that's why you have community instances that are
| geographically tied. That's already happening (I mod at
| CoSocial.ca for instance).
|
| You're right about networks being sticky, but Fedi is
| flourishing despite it, and if regulation further
| accelerates enshitification, I've no doubt we'll have a
| viable alternative to jump to.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I do hope so! (Just as I'd hoped that the government's
| earlier blunderous and heavy-handed fines for news links
| from Google and Facebook might move Canadians to looking
| into other sites like DDG, but it didn't seem like that
| really happened).
|
| What would CoSocial.ca do about the risk of being held
| legally accountable for "harmful" content on your
| platform? The incentive to censor such content with a
| broad brush may be, if anything, stronger for you than
| for big companies like Facebook which have legal teams.
| Some content (like hate speech) might be pretty obvious,
| but there might also be reasonable content that your
| platform could still risk a legal battle over. What if --
| say, it's early 2020 -- and someone writes a post arguing
| that Health Canada's official advice about masks is
| incorrect? Now it's your responsibility to decide if the
| government is going to deem that post "harmful".
| jszymborski wrote:
| > but there might also be reasonable content that your
| platform could still risk a legal battle over
|
| Yah that's totally fair, and like Michael Geist was
| quoted in the article as saying, the devil is in the
| details of this bill. I don't know what the letter of the
| law is here.
|
| > What if -- say, it's early 2020 -- and someone writes a
| post arguing that Health Canada's official advice about
| masks is incorrect?
|
| I understand where you are coming from, but I am
| personally (can't speak for the team) not worried about
| the legal liability here. If the law simply requires that
| platforms enforce the current letter of the law re:
| speech, then we will be just fine. I'll concede again
| that the devil is in the details of the legislation. If
| it's a bad law, bad things will happen.
|
| Furthermore, there's usually carve outs for not-huge
| organisations (this is true of the link tax as well).
|
| FWIW, we've already deleted or limited posts that have
| been COVID-denialism related when they are disruptive
| and/or harmful.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| (that's why I chose a specific example of when Health
| Canada was in the wrong, and they later turned around and
| admitted masks _do_ protect people, which was already
| clear to many people early on).
|
| Carve-outs for small organizations would be great here,
| though!
| ramblenode wrote:
| > carve-outs for "harmful" speech (best not yell "fire" in a
| movie theatre or "bomb" in an airport)
|
| Just a reminder that the US Constitution does not explicitly
| have a carve-out. This argument originated from a Supreme
| Court justice who wanted to establish a legal basis for
| censoring anti-war speech. The slippery slope does not even
| need to be speculated about; it was purposefully baked into
| the "harmful" speech classification from the beginning.
| superkuh wrote:
| This is a terrible idea, but as long as it only applies to
| incorporated persons it's fine. By incorporating and creating a
| legal person that has very limited legal liability an entity
| gives up most human rights.
|
| But if this is applied to non-incorporated human persons it will
| be very frightening and do much damage.
| AwaAwa wrote:
| This is Canada. It will be applied to whomever the Government
| wants and then a few years down the line, if you survive,
| you'll get $10.5M worth of taxpayer funded hush money.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| I hate the modern day we live in where every single person is
| obsessed with making sure people who think differently than they
| do should be silenced. This is not limited to one group, this is
| pervasive throughout all discourse everywhere, and it's getting
| so exhausting.
| dadjoker wrote:
| It's for those who know that they don't have a valid argument
| to make in the marketplace of ideas, and so they try to censor
| anyone who dares to have an opposing viewpoint and label them
| as "harmful" or "spreading misinformation."
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| On the other hand, if censorship is a bad idea, why is it
| winning in the marketplace of ideas? It kinda seems like free
| speech is losing, so why keep rooting for a failing idea? The
| rational answer is to look a step forward and update your
| position to match the winner, as it's empirically winning.
| jdsully wrote:
| Because its sidestepping this market and using force
| instead of argumentation.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| It's realpolitik. If you think it's worth fight for then
| why choose a losing battleground?
|
| "I think the people I disagree with should limit
| themselves to this arena," is a guaranteed way of losing.
| It's like saying, "I think we should all line up and
| fight in a big field," when your opponents bring in the
| guns and artillery you say, "Yes, you overpowered us and
| won, but you did it in the wrong way so we didn't
| actually lose."
|
| Again, it seems that free speech is losing in the
| marketplace of ideas, why wouldn't that make you change
| your mind? Holding onto a losing idea is exactly how the
| marketplace of ideas is not supposed to work.
| jpalawaga wrote:
| I feel like Americans (HN in particular), distrustful of their
| government, will not like this.
|
| I think it's great. People will look at Fox News and think 'thank
| god,' but as a Canadian, I'm glad we have more stringent
| restrictions on reckless forms of speech (hate/inciting genocide,
| fake news, etc). Further, I cannot recount a time when I've seen
| someone's speech restricted in a way I thought was improper.
|
| Yes, it is possible for a power to be abused. I don't agree with
| not granting the power though. But I think it's fundamentally a
| 'trust in government' thing (which Americans sadly have little
| of).
| baggy_trough wrote:
| What constitutes a reckless form of speech is entirely in the
| eye of the beholder, which is why this is a terrible idea.
| AwaAwa wrote:
| As a Canadian, we are in dire straits because of government
| overreach. And reading history it looks like that has been the
| case for at least the last 4 decades.
|
| Of course the Canadian rug under which everything is swept has
| become a tapestry of national Pride. Though that pride runs
| naked, like an emperor. Good thing MAID in Canada means
| something final.
| msandford wrote:
| The COVID vaccines have saved many lives. They've also caused
| some adverse reactions in some folks.
|
| Should people be allowed to discuss this? Is this reckless or
| responsible? Why? What happens if the science changes? Who
| ensures that the folks in charge stay current?
| betaby wrote:
| Point is that some Canadian provinces had a literal curfew
| and any discussion of it was absolutely shut down.
| Fervicus wrote:
| Who decides what is fake news? Will you still hold the same
| view when the party you don't like is in power and defining
| what is fake news?
| euniceee3 wrote:
| What a joke. This is how the US has solved this problem.
|
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1761567080988676256.html
| DarkByte wrote:
| Unfortunately this is extremely dangerous as this opens the door
| to mis-labeling attacks by politicians pushing agendas and
| looking to censor talk against them.
| jszymborski wrote:
| It's very funny to see the brains of all the Americans who are
| unaware of freedom of expression laws in other Western countries
| entirely melt whenever headlines like these show up.
|
| I can assure you, this is not China or the USSR. Our press,
| elections, and democratic institutions are free. Nobody is
| getting or will be thrown in jail for expressing their political
| opinions, unless it's calling for the death of a group of people
| or bodily harm to a protected class.
| lucidone wrote:
| Grass is greener and so forth but as a Canadian I find our
| current government paternalistic, pandering, reactive, and
| stifling. Not every problem should be solved by the sledgehammer
| of our public service, regulation, and bureaucracy, all of which
| are highly inefficient and wasteful. It's tax season - I pay
| nearly half my wages to the government in income tax - all so
| they can redistribute it to those who they deem worthy and
| unworthy (similar how to they might deem some content harmful and
| other content unharmful). Let me make my own decisions!
| timbit42 wrote:
| Even the opposition party is for this nonsense.
| scohesc wrote:
| I can't wait to see what the definition of "harmful content" is.
| It's likely we'll never know the specific definition because
| it'll use subjective wording that is up to interpretation which
| will conveniently be used by the justice system in ways that
| favor the current sitting government rather than the individual.
|
| Remember, it's "for the children" so we have to ram this
| legislation through as fast as possible - children in Canada,
| right now, are getting harmed as I type this comment!
|
| I can't wait until "anti-vaccine sentiments", "anti-government
| messaging", "apolitical misinformation" etc. all get rolled up
| into "online harmful content" because "it could cause harm to
| somebody, somewhere in Canada at any time".
|
| "Prime Minister Trudeau, show me on the doll where the harmful
| content hurt you."
| renegat0x0 wrote:
| Some things ring a Bell: meta oversight board, disinformation
| governance board, fact checking sites, counter disinformation
| unit.
|
| It always work with funding from powerful. Always people at top
| are nominated by the powerful. The last thing is these boards
| have to listen to powerful people. Therefore it is a puppet show.
|
| Rather than creating social media moderation tools for the
| community they establish boards.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Sounds to me like Trudeau is promising somebody who will vaguely
| do something because the opposition politicians are all pushing a
| bill to do mandatory identification for porn sites to allow for
| age gating.
|
| I don't really see how expanding the administrative state will
| help matters, especially with such a vague and exploitable
| mission like "preventing harm". What is harm? Is speaking against
| the presiding government harm?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| mandatory ID laws are the dream of every single ad funded
| publisher on the internet.
|
| Can you imagine someone in 1970 being asked to show ID to get a
| copy of the daily print version of their local newspaper?
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| not just showing ID, but making damn sure the vendor checked
| it, and potentially can prove they checked it.
| arp242 wrote:
| This article is jumping the gun; there is no text yet, and it's
| entirely unclear what "accountable for harmful content" means
| exactly. How exactly that is defined makes a huge difference. And
| all of this is based on "sources" so it may not even be accurate
| in the first place.
|
| Right now all anyone can respond with is guesses and assumptions.
| This should be discussed in a few days, when there is actually
| something concrete to discuss.
|
| All of this is typical of "the news cycle". Imagine delaying
| publication for a few days until there's something to actually
| discuss...
| tamimio wrote:
| > It's not clear whether the regulator will have power only over
| online platforms hosted in Canada or over all websites accessible
| by Canadians.
|
| Canada is irrelevant, it cannot enforce anything beyond its
| borders. This regulation will be used as a pretext later to
| create a digital identity and violate users' privacy even more.
| The children's safety argument is the responsibility of their
| parents/guardians, not the government. If the government really
| cares about children, it should start by tackling the drug
| problem.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Or the homelessness problem. Or the food bank queues problem.
|
| These are much more serious and more pressing threats to child
| welfare in Canada than PornHub is.
|
| Unfortunately, solutions to these problems don't require
| implementing digital ID for Canadians, so these are non-
| starters.
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