A federal report issued by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s department says that a large number of Canadians have expressed a desire for Ottawa to implement “stronger legislation” to regulate internet content and combat “online harm.” The report, titled “What We Heard: 2022 Roundtables on Online Safety,” summarized 19 in-person and virtual roundtable discussions held in…

The Liberal government will be introducing its long-awaited bill aimed at targeting online hate speech and misinformation by this fall at the latest, says Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. Rodriguez told MPs on the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on May 29 that his department will be “coming up with something very shortly”…

Commentary The CRTC is best known as the Canadian content regulator. For the last half-century or so it has seen to it that Canadian productions, like “Anne of Green Gables,” and Canadian music artists were featured with sufficient regularity. (Those of us of a certain age would joke about having Anne Murray’s “Snowbird” seared into…

Bill C-11—the Liberal government’s contentious legislation bringing digital streaming giants under the purview of Canada’s broadcasting regulator—passed last week amid opposition politicians decrying it as an online censorship measure. Although predicted effects of the legislation are steeped in debate, Bill C-11’s passage comes as the Liberal government works on two other proposals that could also impact…

A large majority of Canadians voiced concerns over Ottawa’s proposed “online harms” legislation, but this information was not included in the government’s report summarizing the results of the consultation, according to Canadian lawyer and academic Michael Geist. Ninety percent of Canadians who responded to a previous federal public consultation seeking feedback on Ottawa’s proposed “online harms” legislation…

Commentary The next step in narrowing Canadians’ rights may be justified by a government survey that eliminated the views of anyone opposed to the government’s attempts to squelch freedom of expression. In a hair-raising precursor of what’s likely to come in this year’s online harms legislation, it was revealed this week by Jamie Sarkonak of…

If the Online Safety Bill passes, Ofcom will be granted new powers to become Britain’s bona fide online safety regulator, but some have expressed alarm about its future scope. “Basically Ofcom is being given a very, very free hand indeed,” said Professor Andrew Tettenborn, common-law and continental jurisdictions scholar and advisor to the Free Speech…

Everyone who uses the Internet will be affected by the British government’s upcoming Online Safety Bill, which will significantly curtail freedom of expression in a way that has profound consequences, according to a leading media law expert. In a legal opinion for the freedom of expression campaign group Index on Censorship, Gavin Millar QC heavily…