\n Canada's liberal government on Monday introduced draft legislation that aims to protect the population, notably children, from hate and other online harms -- and proposes up to life imprisonment for those who advocate genocide.\n<\/p>\n
\n It would increase criminal penalties for spreading hate on social media platforms -- including the ramping up from a five year sentence for promoting genocide -- and toughen requirements for reporting of child pornography.\n<\/p>\n
\n A new digital safety regulator would be tasked with enforcing the rules that target companies including Facebook, X and Pornhub.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under bill C-63, Canadians would also be empowered to flag harmful content and request its swift removal directly, or to file complaints against persons posting hate speech at a human rights tribunal, which could order compensation for victims.\n<\/p>\n
\n Social media companies, meanwhile, could be forced to add parental controls that limit content or features available to children, such as the ability to communicate with strangers.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"A growing body of evidence shows that online harms are a huge and growing problem. People are saying and doing things online that we would never tolerate in the physical world,\" a senior government official told a briefing.\n<\/p>\n
\n The legislation was needed, the official said, because social media companies \"continue to shirk and evade responsibility for meaningfully tackling harm on their platforms.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Much of the regulations are similar to the EU's Digital Services Act and Britain's Online Safety Law, both enacted last year.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Canadian legislation comes as the US Supreme Court considers whether a pair of state laws that limit content moderation on social media are constitutional.\n<\/p>\n
\n Those laws were passed by Florida and Texas in a bid to stem what American conservatives see as political bias by big tech companies on the major platforms.\n<\/p>\n
\n Previous versions of Canada's bill, first proposed in 2021, were criticized by privacy and civil liberties groups for stifling free speech.\n<\/p>\n
\n Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has panned its latest incarnation too as an \"attack on freedom of expression.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n According to government data, four in 10 Canadians are regularly exposed to online hate.\n<\/p>\n
\n Federal police said they have seen a 1,000-fold increase in reporting of child exploitation over the past decade, while a recent study cited by Ottawa found nearly two-thirds of women and girls in Canada face online abuse or harassment on a monthly basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canada's liberal government on Monday introduced draft legislation that aims to protect the population, notably children, from hate and other online harms -- and proposes up to life imprisonment for those who advocate genocide. It would increase criminal penalties for spreading hate on social media platforms -- including the ramping up from a five year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-128847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n