Life sentences for speech? Pre-crime detention? Ex post facto law? Anonymous accusers? It's all in Justin Trudeau's "Online Harms Bill," a true "threat to democracy"
I got in some hot water a while back for admitting I was relatively unconcerned with Republican villainy these days compared to other worries. This Canada Online Harms Act, whose details I missed earlier (apologies to Public and Yuri Bezmenov!), perfectly embodies the kind of thing that keeps me up at night now.
Whatever else Republicans have been up to, they haven’t been scheduling nuclear bomb runs over the whole concept of individual rights (although they’re trying to catch up with moves like the antisemitism bill). People will focus on the cartoon wokeness of Justin Trudeau’s bill, but that’s not what makes it scary — he’s trying to create a full-blown surveillance state, complete with a giant citizen army of paid snitches, with one stroke. Things not even imaginable a few years ago, like pre-emptive punishment for crimes not even committed or life sentences for what Canada’s former Chief Justice called “some words,” would be reality with this bill. Genuine political dissent would become logistically impossible, and virtual mob rule a certainty.
People misunderstood the content of stories like the Twitter Files to be solely about censorship. The real issue was the creation of huge extrademocratic bureaucracies that use digital levers to manipulate political life and whose growth is difficult-to-impossible to check. The way this bill casually dismisses things like the right to face your accuser or due process or protection from ex post facto law shows the utter contempt for democracy. These ideas have a lot of support in elite circles in America and I’m sorry, they’re operating on a completely different level of scary than something like the Trump movement even. Do people just not believe this stuff is happening, or do they think it’s okay? I don’t get it.
Why don't you go and debate Matt then? For you young folks that don't get it — The devil is always in the details. That's why the law needs to be explicit and not open to loose interpretation. I'm worried about the bill because its intent is not child protection. Think a little deeper. Matt is a distinguished investigative reporter.
The thing is, Canada already has an established (and repeatedly courg-challenged) legal framework for hate speech and hate crimes. These terms are already clearly defined, and laws are free and even supposed to reference other established legislation and legal precedent rather than republish parts of the criminal code over and over again.
So no, the law does not need to be a capsule full of explicit definitions of things that are already well defined in law. It merely needs to make direct reference to those definitions and other relevant legislation.
And based off of those established legislation
“offence motivated by hatred,” in theory any non-criminal offense, as tiny as littering, committed with hateful intent;
is a bizarre twisting of things. The author is either ignorant of Canadian hate laws, while still choosing to report on them, or engaging in purposeful FUD for some reason.
Genuine political dissent would become logistically impossible, and virtual mob rule a certainty.
There's a major difference between political dissent and hate speech.
You can say: "I don't think transgender people should be allowed to choose which bathroom they go to", that just makes you a shitty person with no compassion. But if you say "If I see a trans women in the mens bathroom I'll beat them up out of there", that is very clearly hate speech and threats of violence.
It's not like it's hard to treat people with basic respect. You can disagree without resorting to hateful comments and threats and name calling. If you don't see the hate speech problem you're probably part of the problem because surprise, it's only conservatives you see online constantly spewing FUD and hate speech.
I'm still waiting for the Jordan Petersons of the world to be rounded up and hauled off to the compelled speech gulags after the last round of hysterical free speech panic.