The Canadian federal government sent an email this week to civil liberties associations and other groups announcing the opening of the government’s consultation period on its proposed “Online Harms Legislation”.
The email included slides in an attachment with information about the legislation, entitled “Technical Discussion Paper: Online Harms Legislation”.
The legislation will regulate social media expression that the government deems to be “hateful” or “harmful”.
The slides state “there is a clear role for Government” in regulating online speech and that “efforts by social media platforms are inconsistent and not enough”. The government proposes to “set new rules for social media platforms”, including:
- Obligation to remove 5 categories of harmful content (hate speech, child sexual exploitation content, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, incitement to violence content, and terrorist content)
- Harmful content to removed within 24 hours of being flagged
- Transparency, reporting and preservation requirements
- Procedural fairness for users, victims, and advocacy groups
- Direct internet service providers (ISPs) to block access in Canada as a last resort with a court order, for platforms that persistently do not comply with orders to take down child exploitation and terrorist content
The legislation would also create a new Digital Safety Commission to “oversee and enforce new rules”, “make binding decisions on content removal”, and “provide independent recourse through a digital tribunal system”.
The forthcoming legislation may also:
- Require social media platforms to inform the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) about certain types of information posted on their platforms (slide 10).
- Provide CSIS with a new judicial authorization for obtaining consumers’ internet subscriber information such as the transmission data, customer name, address, phone number, billing information associated with IP address (slide 12).
The consultation period ends on September 25, 2021. Comments can be submitted to the government at: pch.icn-dci.pch@canada.ca.
