A Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ordered a Calgary woman to stop posting hate messages against minority groups on a U.S.-based white supremacist website. The commission also fined Jessica Beaumont $1,500 for posting the messages and ordered her to pay $3,000 in special compensation to Richard Warman as a result […]
Post Tagged with: "internet hate"
One Man’s War on Internet Hate
The Ottawa Citizen profiles Richard Warman, who has lodged 15 complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against neo-Nazis and white supremacists for spreading hatred on the Internet against Jews, blacks, homosexuals and other target groups.
Alberta Man Sentenced to Jail for Hate Site
In what is being described as a groundbreaking case, an Alberta man has been sentenced to 16 months in jail for promoting hatred on his website.
Reflecting on the CRTC’s Hate Site Blocking Decision
My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) looks at last week's flurry of activity over Internet-based hate sites at the CRTC, including the request for an order to permit voluntary blocking and the Commission's decision to deny the request on Friday.
Had the CRTC addressed the substantive questions, the case would have presented an enormously difficult choice. There is little doubt that the content in question is illegal and that Warman faces a serious threat. By directly targeting Warman, the foreign sites have arguably brought themselves within Canada's jurisdiction. Further, by merely asking the CRTC to issue a voluntary order, Warman avoided state-sanctioned censorship and placed the issue in the hands of ISPs.
Despite the good intentions behind the application, however, there remains some cause for concern.
Tough Choice for CRTC in Hate Blocking Case
Appeared in the Toronto Star on August 28, 2006 as Content Blocking a Can of Worms More than a decade ago, John Gilmore, one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, coined the phrase "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Last week, the Canadian […]
