Post Tagged with: "c-34"

Social media by Christiaan Colen https://flic.kr/p/wuatgm CC BY-SA 2.0

Why the Answers to Hateful Content Online are Hiding in the Platforms’ Own Rules

The Canadian government has a two-pronged legal strategy to counter rising hate: New Criminal Code provisions to address offline harms, such as intimidation or protests outside schools and places of worship, and the digital safety bill introduced in June, which targets online harms. A new legal duty to act responsibly, which would require internet platforms to publish digital safety plans, provide greater transparency on their efforts to counter harms, and occasionally remove content, serves as the foundation for fighting back against the spread online of illegal content such as non-consensual distribution of intimate images, cyberbullying, terrorist content, and content that incites violence or hatred.

These are worthwhile measures. But for those concerned with antisemitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of hate, my Globe and Mail op-ed notes that stricter rules against illegal content are basic table stakes. The bigger challenge is the far larger category of content best described as “awful but lawful”: the tropes, conspiracy theories, and coded dehumanization that cause serious harm but remain constitutionally protected expression. A law mandating this material’s removal would invite an immediate Charter challenge. Instead, we need to figure out how to address harms without overstepping constitutional safeguards for freedom of expression.

Why the Government’s Plan for a Social Media Ban in Bill C-34 Is Unconstitutional

he debate over the government’s proposed social media ban for under 16s has raised several difficult questions, including doubts about whether it will work, which services it will cover, and what risks to privacy mandating age verification could create. But beyond the operational questions is a more fundamental one: is the ban constitutional? Bill C-34 contains some signals that the government knows there are serious constitutional vulnerabilities, given the obvious implications for freedom of expression that come from blocking an entire cohort of Canadians from accessing information and expressing themselves on social media. The bill contains several provisions that are seemingly designed to act as safeguards that could be used to argue that the ban is proportionate. These include guidance on age verification technologies to address privacy concerns, promises that the verification obligation does not require measures that “unreasonably or disproportionately” limit expression, a requirement that the new Digital Safety Commission consider freedom of expression, equality, and privacy when it establishes regulations and guidelines, and the ability for services to seek a ban exemption if they can demonstrate adequate safeguards for children.

Even with these measures, the ban might still be found to be unconstitutional. But if you think they provide a plausible argument that the ban can be justified (as Emily Laidlaw argues here), the problem is that none will be operational when the ban takes effect. In other words, there is a major disconnect between the law the government says it is establishing and the one it plans to implement. If the safeguards are not implemented and millions of Canadians are required to verify their age to express themselves on social media, I believe the ban is likely to face an immediate court challenge and that a court will rule it violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Two Weeks That Reshaped Canada’s Digital Policy

It started with an unexpected early-morning announcement on June 3, 2026, from Marc Miller, the Minister of Identity and Culture. Mr. Miller said that the government planned to direct the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada’s broadcast regulator, to review its two-week-old decision that imposed hundreds of millions in new investment requirements on internet streaming services. My Globe and Mail essay that appeared over the weekend notes that the move came as a surprise, not only because he had chastised the commission a month earlier for moving too slowly, but also because it marked a major reversal of a core Canadian digital policy that had been years in the making. The decision sent shock waves through the cultural sector, but it was only the start.