What is the Online Harms Act and what does it mean for Canadians?
After much discussion, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has introduced the Online Harms Act. The simple explanation is that the bill proposes all sorts of reforms designed to protect children online. How? Through internet complaint mechanisms (like we have for other media such as the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council) along with hefty fines for hate crimes.
The proposed act will cover social media, live streaming services, and user-uploaded adult content (i.e. p*rn). If a site poses a “significant risk of harm,” there were be consequences. Private and encrypted messages are excluded.
Breaking things down, the bill looks at three broad categories:
- Protecting users: A duty to act responsibly, a duty to make certain content inaccessible, and a duty to protect children. There are a total of seven targeted categories of “harmful content.” That includes content that sexually victimizes children, anything that could push a child to harm themselves, any kind of content that incites violence or terrorism, content that foments hate, and intimate content shared without consent (such as revenge p*rn and deepfakes). Flagged content will have to be removed within 24 hours.
- An enforceable complaint mechanism using a “digital safety commission.” Fines could reach into the hundreds of millions.
- Criminal Code and Canadian Human Rights Amendments to cover online talk about advocating genocide, among other things.
Read more here. Such legislation is long overdue. Let’s see what the critics think, especially when it comes to social media companies. Elon Musk will probably have some kind of tantrum about free speech and Canada turning into a dictatorial state. But we’ll see.
