DANGER INTERNETS AHEAD by Les Orchard (CC BY-NC 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/cSsSX
Online Harms
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.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Bill C-36 Modernizes Canada’s Privacy Law, Then Delays It to 2030
Canada’s private sector privacy law is more than 25 years old and there is broad consensus that a modernization is long overdue. Bill C-36, tabled on Monday, is the government’s third attempt at updating the law, following the failed efforts with Bill C-11 in 2020 and Bill C-27 in 2022. My first post on the new bill focused on what I think remains both the most important development and the biggest mistake: the decision to push the Privacy Commissioner of Canada out of private-sector privacy and to place the file with an overloaded digital safety commission. For years, privacy critics have argued that, given the absence of order-making powers or serious penalties, Canada’s biggest shortcoming has been weak enforcement. Yet just as the government adds much-needed new rights and penalties to the privacy law framework, it undermines enforcement once again by introducing a new regulator that will take years to establish. The consequence is that, rather than updating the law for 2027, it is updating it for 2030 or later.
The Exemption Illusion: Why the Government’s Plan to Fast Track Bill C-34’s Kids’ Social Media Ban Means No Standards, No Privacy Review, and No Enforcement
One of the most heavily promoted features of Bill C-34, the government’s Safe Social Media Act, is that its social media ban for those under 16 comes with a potential exemption for platforms that satisfy the new Digital Safety Commission that they provide adequate safeguards for children. But based on comments from government officials, it appears the exemption is an illusion, at least for years to come. The legislation carefully sets out how the ban is supposed to work, but officials at a technical briefing on the bill this week described a very different plan that involves moving quickly after Royal Assent with regulations to bring the ban into force without waiting for the Digital Safety Commission to be fully operational. No Commission means no age verification standards, no privacy review, no exemption, and no effective enforcement. It also creates huge risks since the initial start of the ban is when tens of millions of Canadians would be required to verify their age, yet the government is sidelining the privacy protections written into its own bill and essentially conceding that the ban is unlikely to carry any real consequences for those services that fail to comply when it first takes effect.
The Law to Be Named Later: Bill C-34 Punts 50 Key Decisions to Cabinet and a Digital Safety Commission That Does Not Yet Exist
The government’s plan to address online safety was introduced yesterday with Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, featuring an under-16 social media ban, pornography age verification, AI chatbot rules, and platform regulation that I argued amount to an everything-all-at-once approach built on a “trust us” bet. My initial guide to the bill highlighted many key issues, but this follow-up examines just how much has been left for later. In many respects, Bill C-34 is best understood as version 1.0 of the Safe Social Media Act with a framework that establishes institutions, sets penalty ceilings, and fixes the age of 16 in the statute. But the bill leaves nearly everything that will determine how the law actually works, including which services are covered, when the ban applies and to whom, what counts as adequate age verification, and what design features platforms must build, to what amounts to a version 2.0 that will be developed later through multiple regulatory processes.
Everything All At Once: Bill C-34 Combines Platform Duties, a Kids’ Social Media Ban, AI Chatbot Regulation, and a Powerful Digital Safety Commission Into a Risky “Trust Us” Bet
The government tabled Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, earlier today, marking its third attempt at online harms legislation after the failed 2021 consultation and Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act that died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued ahead of the 2025 election. As I wrote […]
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Why the Answers to Hateful Content Online are Hiding in the Platforms’ Own Rules 
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