Front Burner - The Liberals’ pitch to regulate online harms

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

The Liberals originally promised a bill tackling online harms would come within 100 days of their re-election in 2021.Instead, Justice Minister Arif Virani tabled their new act on Monday, which aims to create a new commission and regulate content from hate, to extremism, bullying and child abuse materials.So did the Liberals learn lessons from a previous bill criticized for the risk of censorship? And will this current bill actually make the internet safer for children?CBC senior reporter Raffy Boudjikanian explains.

Happy Holidays! I'm Frank Cappadocia, Dean of Continuous Professional Learning at Humber Polytechnic. I'd like you to set a goal to drive key learning for your people in 2025. I want you to connect with Humber CPL to design a custom training solution that accelerates your team's performance and engagement. Humber works with you to hone industry-specific upskilling, enhance your leadership, and drive results. Flexible learning delivery formats are tailored to your unique needs. Adapt, evolve, and excel. To learn more, go to humber.ca slash cpl. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. We have rigorous safety standards for things like my son's Lego at home.

Yet somehow, none for the most dangerous toy, not just in my home, but every Canadian home. The screen that is in front of our children's faces. So on Monday, Liberal Justice Minister Arif Varani, he laid out this legislation the Liberals have been promising for years. A bill dealing with harmful content on the internet, ranging from hate to terror, bullying and content that sexually victimizes children. We cannot tolerate anarchy on the internet. The cost is too great. The safety, the mental health and even the lives of our kids and our most vulnerable are at stake. The liberals actually took a run at this back in 2019 with this bill that they framed as largely about hate. But it was swamped at the time in criticism because people thought that it could lead to censorship. Then they promised a new version of the bill within 100 days of that

year's election, which didn't happen. And last November, amid mounting Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, experts signed an open letter urging them to stop dragging their feet and just table the thing. Now that thing is here, the bill is here, and Varani is really selling it as something that's all about protecting children. In BC, two months ago, with that little child who was sextorted, we know that he had nowhere to turn and ended up turning on himself. That child is no longer with us. It's kids like that that are motivating us to take action. But it does a lot of other things too, including raising criminal penalties for hate speech. So, did the liberals

learn from the criticism of their last bill? And will this new bill really make children safer or reduce the amount of hate circulating online? Rafi Boudjikanian is here. He's a senior reporter with CBC's Parliamentary Bureau. Rafi, hi. Thank you for being here. Hi, Jamie. Great to be back. So let's start with this press conference on Monday night. Justice Minister Varani, he tried to underline why the Liberals think this bill is necessary. And he invited two women to speak about their experiences with online abuse. And I'll warn listeners that this is quite graphic.

But can you tell me about Jane and Carla's stories? Yeah, it was pretty unusual. We don't really get government bringing up individuals to justify passing their legislation. And Jane's story especially was quite something. My name is Jane. I'm a mother whose little girl has been sexually abused and on account of the abuse has also become a victim of sexual exploitation. We don't know if that's her real name, by the way, or certainly not her full name. And Jane talked about her daughter, or certainly not her full name.

And Jane talked about her daughter, who she said was repeatedly sexually assaulted when she was between three and six years old in kindergarten, and talked about how she was exposed to images of child pornography, how adults who were supposed to be caring for her were normalizing that, were telling her that it's normal for adults to have sex with children. And Jane also said that those images lived on online, that they were accessible and searchable for years and years. Images of her daughter. Exactly, yeah. Does Canada not have a responsibility to protect the future of our

children? At what expense do Canadians prioritize their so-called freedom? I am standing here today because we need a culture of lawfulness that strongly enforces internet regulation. The unregulated internet has damaged my child and countless children across the country. Carla Bove's story was a little bit different. My name is Carla Beauvais and I will humbly share my story with you. I take the stand today knowing that it is my duty to talk and not be silenced anymore. So Beauvais is a pretty well-known

Black entrepreneur, at least in Quebec. She founded Black Excellence Awards called the Gala Dynasty Awards. And she talked about how she was repeatedly abused online. She was called names, including the N-word, she said. She was also told to go back home. And it got to the point where she actually shut down her social media presence for a while. OK, so these stories, they're awful. You know, it struck me watching them that they really deal with the pillars that this bill is trying to address.

So harms to children and sexual content with Jane's story and hate with Carla's story. And when we unpack this bill today, Rafi, hopefully we can talk about whether the bill would actually help either of these women. And let's get started here. What kind of platforms online does the bill actually cover? So there are three main categories, adult content services, think of Pornhub, for example, streaming services like Twitch, and then social media. So the Facebooks and Xs of the world would all be covered. There is a provision in the bill that says there has to be a minimum number of users for those services to be sort of encompassed by this bill, but they haven't really defined the threshold yet.

One thing that's not covered is private communication. thing that's not covered is private communication. So anything that's like a direct message on X or Facebook or a WhatsApp message would not be covered by this bill. Okay. Yeah. So the bill says certain kinds of content are going to have to be taken down by the sites that it covers within 24 hours. And what kind of content are we talking about here that would have to come down within 24 hours? That scope is pretty narrow, Jamie. Specifically, it would be sexual images of children and intimate content that's not shared consensually. So revenge porn, so to speak. Those two categories would have to be immediately taken down under this bill. It's interesting, Rafi, the first time that they took a run at this bill,

it was not so narrow, right? It was a much wider group of content. Yeah, it was basically anything that could be hate speech. Platforms would have to take it down within 24 hours. They actually even had an obligation under that first draft to report it to law enforcement or possibly even Canada spy agency CSIS. It was a lot wider in scope. Yeah. And can you just explain to me in a little more detail with that, what were the concerns that 24-hour takedowns could ultimately end up harming free speech? 24-hour takedowns could ultimately end up harming free speech. So the tech giants were saying, we can't possibly enforce all of this.

Like, we don't have the resources to do it. The community groups, many of them were saying, you know, one person's defense of any kind of ethnic or religious minority might be looked at as another person's hate speech. And so they would be unfairly picked on. Essentially, there would be abuse of this provision. And law enforcement was also raising concerns about the idea of even being able to answer to all of this. And that's not in this new draft. It is not. But, you know, we're talking, obviously, as you just said, about child pornography here and about things like revenge porn. And the other question I have is, if they didn't act, what could happen to them and who would enforce it? The legislation does set out punitive measures. It says that you could be fined as a platform up to $10 million or 6% of your global revenue. So whichever of those numbers is bigger.

And the legislation also sets out the creation of a brand new regulatory body, sort of like a CRTC, but for the internet called the Digital Safety Commission. And they'd have the power to enforce all this. Talking about the Digital Safety Commission, let's keep going with it. And the bill does recognize that there's other type of content that's harmful, although it doesn't force the websites to take it down within 24 hours. But what is that content that they're talking about here? Yeah, there is a total of seven categories of harmful content the bill does talk about. So beyond the ones involving children, there is content that incites violent extremism or terrorism, content that incites violence, that foments hatred. And what the bill says is it's putting more of an onus on the platforms

to come up with tools to keep Canadians safe from this kind of stuff. And in addressing why it didn't go further on this front, the government said technology evolved so quickly that they thought it might be a little bit limiting to tell online platforms, here's exactly what we want you to do. So they suggested guidelines rather than a very strict set of rules, guidelines that say things like you have a duty to act responsibly and a duty to protect children. So you need to put in, you know, age restriction, safe search tools so that parents can sort of control what their children are seeing and take it from there. Right. But they didn't say specifically you have to do X, Y and Z, right?

Exactly. And did they define what they're talking about here when they're talking about hate, like hate speech online? they're talking about hate, like hate speech online. So if you read the bill, they provide very broad examples of what they mean. They talk about, you know, speech that vilifies or expresses detestation of an individual or a group of people. They didn't get into specific examples, though, when they tabled this legislation on Monday. Again, though, they did bring up Carla Bove, who talked about how she was insulted. So it does kind of suggest that's what they're aiming at.

And Varani also talked about the stuff he thinks this legislation does not cover. We are not talking about stuff that some people call awful but lawful. There will still be humiliating comments, there will still be offensive comments, insults, expressions of disdain and dislike. There's a lot of stuff that is out there that will remain out there but when people arise to the level of... And of course the bill also leaves it in the hands of the Commission along with the, to define a lot of this. Happy holidays. I'm Frank Cappadocia, Dean of Continuous Professional Learning at Humber Polytechnic. I'd like you to set a goal to drive key learning for your people in 2025.

I want you to connect with Humber CPL to design a custom training solution that accelerates your team's performance and engagement. Humber works with you to hone industry-specific upskilling, enhance your leadership, and drive results. Flexible learning delivery formats are tailored to your unique needs. Adapt, evolve, and excel. To learn more, go to humber.ca slash cpl. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing.

In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cops. Is it fair for me to say it's the special commission that they want to work with the websites to ensure that they have these plans in place that are sufficient? Yeah, the commission would be in charge. I should note users of the internet can also directly go to the websites and complain to them when they see something that falls under those two categories that need to be directly taken down. Besides the commission, the bill would also see the creation of a digital ombudsperson. So that's a separate

entity. It would be a person that also works with the commission and works with the websites to make sure that this bill is put into place, can address complaints and criticisms. And then there's something called the digital office, which is essentially just a bureaucracy to help out those other two offices. We did ask the minister how big that could get, and they referred to parallel organizations in the UK that they said was between 300 and 350 people. OK. And just like who decides if websites and the platforms are doing a good job here? Is it the commission? It's like good plan, like this plan. I mean, so far, it looks like that would be within the commission's mandate. And they have said that they would intend to appoint five commissioners.

So it would be a few people making that call in consensus. All right. And I think it's probably worth us mentioning here that if you asked Facebook right now if they had plans in place to deal with hateful material, the incitement of violence, they would tell you that they do. Right. That's correct. with hateful material, the incitement of violence, they would tell you that they do, right? That's correct. We did actually reach out to Meta, Facebook's parent company, Google, just to get a sense of what they think about this proposed legislation. And Meta's immediate reaction was to say that they support the Canadian government's plans to make the internet safer for children.

They do have parental controls in place. They have proactively taken down a lot of pornographic material. So they're saying they're on top of things. They're also, at least in this preliminary phase, suggesting that they're not going to be antagonistic with the government about this. All right. So this special commission, aside for a moment, the bill does something else, right? And it also suggests an amendment to our criminal code. And how does it go about doing that? What kind of amendment is it calling for here? Yeah, the Justice Department wants to make it harder to utter hate speech online. So the big thing here is punitive measures. It's focusing on increased

sentencing. One of the big things they want to do is increase the maximum sentencing for incitement or promotion of genocide, specifically from the current five years to up to life imprisonment, so 25 years. of hate. And Justice Minister Arif Varani said that that would rely on existing Supreme Court jurisprudence, nodding toward how it's anything that encourages detestation of a group or incites action against them. It also wants to create a new hate crime offense under the criminal code. Okay. The bill also would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act. And tell me a little bit more about that and what the goal would be there. The bill wants to make it so that you can go to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and say, X, Y, Z uttered hate speech against me online, file a complaint about that. And if the person or persons you're filing a complaint against are found guilty, you could be awarded up to $20,000.

I should specify that you were previously able to do that in this country. That is, you were able to complain about hate speech online up to the year 2013. That was possible. hate speech online up to the year 2013 that was possible. And it was repealed under the previous conservative government due to freedom of expression concerns and how that kind of mechanism could be abused. So let's talk about some of the reaction that we're seeing around this new bill. First, what have we heard from the conservatives over the last week? So they really sort of started getting into it last week because that's when the liberals were telegraphing that the bill was coming. Conservative leader Pierre Poiliev was asked about this, and he hinted that he was looking at this as just one in a series of attacks by the liberals on fundamental rights.

What does Justin Trudeau mean when he says the word hate speech? He means speech he hates. Now, of course, since then, the bill has been tabled in Parliament. The Conservatives have had a first glance at it. On Monday, they were quiet. But since then, they did issue a statement. And they said that they believe in protecting the rights of children. They believe in protecting children from being sexually victimized online. But they also said that they don't believe the government should be banning opinions that contradict the prime minister's radical ideology. Now, it's not clear to me from that statement whether they intend to vote for or against the bill. I'm also not entirely sure what they mean by the prime minister's radical ideology. We did get in touch with the Conservative Party. They said that the statement says what it says, that they're going to be looking at this bill carefully and following the process through parliament. OK, so the Conservatives are making some kind of overreach argument here, although it's not super clear exactly what

they're concerned about. Perhaps we'll get more from them in the coming days and weeks. But we have also heard this concern around overreach from some experts that have looked at the new bill, including University of Ottawa Professor Michael Geist, who has been on FrontBurner before, and he fears that the broad powers the Digital Safety Commission would have given how it can rule to make content inaccessible, hold private hearings and levy huge fines. But I know, Rafi, we've also heard concerns that there's areas where this bill doesn't go far enough to really protect children and victims of hate. And so what are their arguments? So we heard from the NDP's justice critic, Peter Julian. He sort of came out swinging on Monday

after the legislation was tabled. And he said, The biggest weakness is the fact that algorithms are not touched. And algorithms are what delivers the hate online, the disinformation online, and the self-harm online that has affected so many people around the world. And that's what sort of triggers a lot of searches on hate. He wants to see that fixed. Then we also heard from Emily Laidlaw. She's a professor at the University of Calgary and one of the many experts the government

consulted on this. And she noted how the bill does not get into private messages, as we were talking about earlier. Right. And I'm sure there's a lot more that people will have to say about this bill in the coming days and weeks and months. One thing I wanted to ask you before we went, Rafi, is it strikes me here that the liberals have gone to great lengths to frame this bill about protecting children, even though it succeeds that 2021 bill that largely focused on hate. It's a pivot, right? It's a bit of a pivot.

Yeah. Why do you think, I mean, at least a pivot in framing, right? And so why do you think that they would change that? That's a very good question. So why do you think that they would change that? That's a very good question. So because I'm a nerd, I went through the initial bill, C-36, and did the old control find and looked for the word children. Want to guess how many times it appeared?

Oh, no, I couldn't even. Zero. Zero. Wow. I'm shocked, actually. I'm shocked it's zero. Yeah. And then, of course, in this one, it's there 18 times, which is a lot less surprising because, you know, as we've been talking about, it focuses a lot on children. Now, I will say in between these two, there have been a lot of consultations.

We nodded to that earlier. They have heard from children's advocacy groups. They have heard from children's advocacy groups and in these interim reports they've published time to time, we've seen that reflected that the community groups have been asking them to step up and protect children. So that would be part of the reason. becomes much more palatable and perhaps even a lot harder for your political opponents to argue against because who could be against protecting children, right? And though we haven't heard that really directly from the liberals yet, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made a point of noting it on Monday. And of course, he is in a confidence and supply agreement helping to keep the liberals in power right now. Final procedural question before we wrap up today. This bill was tabled on Monday, but it's still just a bill. And what would need to happen before it could actually become law?

I guess I set myself up for a procedural question by calling myself a nerd. I love it. Yeah. So obviously, it hasn't been debated yet. It has to go through first reading in the House of Commons. Even that hasn't happened yet. It will have to go through parliamentary committee to be studied there. That's where the NDP says it really wants to make suggestions and amendments and beef it up before it passes. And then even if it does pass the House of Commons, it has to go through the Senate. So really, it could be the end of the year before this thing is set in stone, before some version of it passes, Jamie. Or it could die, right? Or it could die. Or it could die. Rafi,

thank you very much. You're very welcome. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.