Bill C-11, the government’s online streaming bill, is rightly garnering increasing attention, but there is a private member’s Senate bill that should also be on the radar screen. Bill S-210, a follow-up to S-203, is a bill that purports to restrict underage access to sexually explicit material. Sponsored by Senator Miville-Dechêne, a former CBC journalist appointed to the Senate in 2018, the bill would require age verification requirements for sites (likely backed by face recognition technologies) and mandated website blocking for sites that fail to comply with the verification requirements.
Post Tagged with: "twitter"
The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 54: Eric Goldman on Internet Platform Liability and the Trump Executive Order
The U.S. approach to Internet platform liability has been characterized as the single most important legal protection for free speech on the Internet. Over the past two decades, every major Internet service has turned to the rules to ensure that liability for third party content posted on their sites rests with the poster, not the site or service. Those rules have proven increasingly controversial, however, with mounting calls for the companies to take on greater responsibility for content posted on their sites. The issue captured international attention last month when U.S. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that heightens the pressure for change.
Eric Goldman is a Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law in the Silicon Valley where he co-directs the High Tech Law Institute. He has written extensively about Internet liability and appeared before the US Congress to testify on the issue. He joins me on the podcast to discuss the history behind the U.S. approach, its impact, and the implications of the Trump Executive Order.
Why the USMCA Locks in the Internet Platform Liability System in the U.S., Canada and Mexico
U.S. President Donald Trump yesterday signed an executive order targeting Internet platforms after Twitter fact-checked one of his tweets on mail-in voting (the company followed up with a warning on another tweet earlier today involving glorifying violence). The order cannot simply reverse current U.S. law, but it encourages U.S. regulators to rethink how the Internet safe harbour provisions that limit liability for Internet platforms for third party content are implemented.
While the U.S. is obviously free to assess its statutory approach, one issue that received little attention is that the U.S. has effectively locked itself into the safe harbour system through its trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. The inclusion of safe harbour provisions in the agreement were viewed by some as an attempt to force Canada to adopt similar rules, yet the more likely reason for lobbying on the issue was to ensure that the U.S. itself was bound by the rules. Indeed, there were last minute efforts to remove the provision from the final deal, but those were ultimately rejected.
Twitter Issues Transparency Report
Twitter has issued a transparency report that discloses government requests for user information along with copyright takedown demands. The report indicates that there were 11 Canadian user information requests in the first half of 2012, behind only the U.S. (easily the most requests) and Japan.
French Circumvent Twitter Ban on Election Results
The NY Times reports on how Twitter users in France circumvented a law prohibiting the early publication of election results over the weekend. Canadians faced a similar ban during the last election, but the government has since announced plans to change the law.
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 202: David Soberman on the Reality Behind Claims Canadian Wireless Prices Have Been Cut in Half 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 201: Robert Diab on the Billion Dollar Lawsuits Launched By Ontario School Boards Against Social Media Giants 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 200: Colin Bennett on the EU’s Surprising Adequacy Finding on Canadian Privacy Law 
Debating the Online Harms Act: Insights from Two Recent Panels on Bill C-63 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 199: Boris Bytensky on the Criminal Code Reforms in the Online Harms Act
