9 ms·

Trudeau tries to bring back online censorship bill

115 points by andrenth 5y ago

multiplegeorges 5y ago
Really surprised to see such a low quality editorial from such a weak newspaper as the Toronto Sun on HN. Here's some actual expert content on this issue: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/02/not-ready-for-prime-time/ https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/02/not-ready-for-prime-time...
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Agreed, but the two sources are in agreement. It often feels like Canada is run by two groups: the energy companies on the centre-right, and the oligarchy of media giants on centre-left. Here we see the media companies pushing Trudeau. We could regain our voting power with something better than FPTP.
  - mig39 5y ago
    Trudeau famously promised to abolish FPTP. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-vows-to-end-1st-past-the-post-voting-in-platform-speech-1.3114902 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-vows-to-end-...
    - nameisname 5y ago
      He wouldn't have won the last election if he did.
  - multiplegeorges 5y ago
    They do agree, but if you only read the editorial you wouldn't be anymore informed than you were before. Except now you may think "Trudeau bad" with little to back up that opinion. At least Geist goes into the substance of the legislation and the very real risks it poses. You forgot the third leg on the Canadian oligarchy stool: banks. FPTP can't die soon enough.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  The article was informative and inline with other media news sources posted on hn. I've never heard a newspaper described as weak before, what strength should they possess that they lack.
  - wk_end 5y ago
    I'd say a strong news source probably doesn't need to lean on a "Sunshine Girl" [0] to sell papers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Girl
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      Don't they have a sunshine boy as well? Seems fair and well within my liberal worldview (a nude body isn't a sin). It is probably time we accepted a more mature view of the human body. It always wondered why killing someone is acceptable at 8 or 9 but nudity is forbidden in primetime.
      - wk_end 5y ago
        No, they don’t. And while I’m not against nudity (though there’s no nudity in the Toronto Sun), sticking some T&A in your tabloid to boost your appeal to the horny demographic is the opposite of a “mature view of the human body”.
  - rbobby 5y ago
    As a Torontonian... the Sun isn't much of a paper. Good for sports and fish wrap. Breathless crime reporting too. City politics. That's about it.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > Really surprised to see such a low quality editorial from such a weak newspaper as the Toronto Sun on HN. Indeed. I wonder if the print version ran this next to the "Sunshine Girl".
- clove 5y ago
  Wait, why are you surprised to see "low quality" from a "weak newspaper?" Shouldn't that have been expected? Did you misspeak or am I missing something?
  - hiyer 5y ago
    They were surprised to see it "on HN". OTOH despite the poor quality, the article seems to have spawned a healthy discussion, so maybe it belongs here after all :-).
YaBomm 5y ago
iqanq 5y ago
908B64B197 5y ago
This isn’t surprising. The father suspended the constitution (because that’s a thing over there??) over a manufactured panic over terrorists planting bombs in mailbox (Feds later got busted doing it, quite literally red-handed) [0]. He also maintained a close personal friendship with dictators such as Fidel Castro [1] [2], a man of great respect for humans right who didn’t hesitate to round up the gays in labor camps. Seems like the son is trying to do the same with the truckers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversies_involving_the_Royal_Canadian_Mounted_Police#Break-ins_and_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversies_involvin... [1] https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/world/justin-trudeau-castro-eulogy-parody/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/world/justin-trudeau-castro-e... [2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-justin-trudeau-castro_n_583a000ce4b09b605600b793 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-justin-trudeau-castr...
- drno123 5y ago
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > but Donald Trump called MBS his "friend" after he had a US journalist chopped up in an embassy He did so while giving billions to their worst enemy (Israel). > That's not even mentioning the cozy relationship between Trump and Putin. I remember 4 years of the news telling me the "indictments" for collusion with Russia were "about to drop any day now". And yet nothing happened.
  - api 5y ago
    Money has always trumped (pun intended? up to you) ethics and principle when it comes to foreign policy in the US. Saudi Arabia has a lot of money so they can do what they want. It's probably the same in Canada.
- nneonneo 5y ago
sebastianconcpt 5y ago
Are we one step closer to loose freedom of expression?
thomassmith65 5y ago
stackedinserter 5y ago
Where is Trudeau BTW? He's been hiding somewhere since truckers' protest started.
- afterburner 5y ago
  He tested positive for COVID. https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1488162322187182085 https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1488162322187182085 Doug Ford, Conservative Premier of Ontario, has actually been hiding, no COVID excuse and no one's even threatening to overthrow him.
  - giancarlostoro 5y ago
    Would be nice if you provided a reference about Doug Ford hiding, or if he's just adhering to current law in his country.
    - afterburner 5y ago
      > or if he's just adhering to current law in his country What does this even mean. He's making no public statements, that's what it means for a politician to be "hidden". Meanwhile Trudeau has made several damning statements about the trucker convoy.
      - giancarlostoro 5y ago
        I wasn't familiar with that use of the word hidden. I thought you meant physically in hiding, because Trudeau is physically hiding.
        afterburner 5y ago
        I didn't realize you needed to know the exact whereabouts of the Canadian Prime Minister at all times. Aren't you happy to not be seeing him anyways?
        5y ago
agentultra 5y ago
CountDrewku 5y ago
mmastrac 5y ago
Sorry, this is a very low-quality source for this discussion.
mgamache 5y ago
Is there any compelling reason to limit free speech on social media by the government? There are already laws covering speech limits. Speech limits are myopic in nature, they solve a short term problem by muzzling specific people/views. But, they usually create longer term negative effects that are more difficult to see in the moment.
- didibus 5y ago
  The CRTC regulations on broadcaster covers the following categories: > Protection of children. > Restrictions against hate speech. > Protection of national production and national culture. > Right of reply. > Restriction on the quantity of advertising, of ad for certain products (tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs), and on product placement Today, no internet company is considered a "broadcaster", and thus is unregulated by the CRTC. The bill is to propose redefining what counts as a broadcaster so that online businesses also fall under the regulations. At a high level, I think it means Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, etc. The issue is that the internet made it easy for everyone to become a broadcaster. So the question with the bill is how will you distinguish an individual broadcasting a video they made, from a broadcasting business or entity that would need regulating? And when would an individual broadcaster become an entity in need of regulating? Is having 100 million subscriber something that makes you an entity needing to be regulated? Is it if you make money from it? Is it if you're paid by others for what you broadcast? Then there's also the question of what is a broadcast? Must it include video, must it include audio, what about images? Or video games? Or texts? Or other forms of multimedia?
didibus 5y ago
While the details of the bill maybe needs another iteration, I feel the spirit of the bill makes sense to me, and I think the issues around it should be discussed. Legislature hasn't caught up with the internet. > The CRTC will develop and implement regulations to ensure that both traditional and online broadcasting services, including web giants, offer meaningful levels of Canadian content and contribute to the creation of Canadian content in both official languages That's generally been what the CRTC does, it makes sure that broadcasters have enough Canadian made content compared to non-canadian made content, and to also make sure it has content in both official languages, as well as to help support and promote content from minorities. And that the content meets some expected standards, like not advertising things to children or medical that aren't allowed in Canada. > Protection of children. > Restrictions against hate speech. > Protection of national production and national culture. > Right of reply. > Restriction on the quantity of advertising, of ad for certain products (tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs), and on product placement These are the regulations currently applied to broadcasters. The problematic ones for the internet would probably be the first two. The last three, I think most people would be quite happy to see more enforcement around for internet platforms. Now for the first two, you can argue that the fine line between protecting children and hate speech could be used to censor anything that opposes the current ruling party. This greatly depends if you believe in Canada's institutions as fighting for democracy and liberty, which I think is more common in Canada, or if, like most Americans, you believe in the government institutions as constantly being the enemy of democracy and liberty and something the citizen need to constantly take upon themselves to watchdog. That said, I believe there are other checks and balances that can be put in place here. As long as there would be mechanisms to challenge rulings, and that all such regulations was still done transparently. And that there were relatively unambiguous guidelines. And that there were still clear ways to publish things on the internet that are bad for children and hateful but wouldn't fall under broadcasting regulations, such as say your own website, email, downloadable content, etc. In any case, I'm not here to spin my opinion of this, I'm not sure exactly what the reasonable set of rules and regulations should be here. But I'm just saying I think it needs to be discussed. Most people probably don't know that broadcasters currently must abide by this regulation, and that internet streaming platforms don't have too. So I think educating about these and discussing what regulation makes sense and what doesn't needs to happen.
sleepingadmin 5y ago
So lets discuss what happened here. In the middle of January the federal government made it mandatory to get vaccinated. Effectively putting many Truckers out of a job. They are also denied any benefits. So what are they to do? Tons of other major countries have already removed all restrictions. UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, etc. So we are sitting here wondering what's wrong with our government. Hence the now unemployed truckers went to Ottawa to protest. Which is their human right? Even their charter right? Before they arrived in Ottawa, 1 guy with a nazi flag walked around all over Ottawa and had photographers following him. There's a pretty large bounty to identify this dude, yet nobody can seem to do it. However, the stories wrote themselves. From our state propaganda... They are a fringe minority of white supremacist truckers. Very unusually there were updates from the police on the highways saying the convoy was tiny, only a few trucks. Like an attempt to label this fringe minority tiny and can be ignored? Very unusual, never seen the police do this before. The trucker convoy showed up in Ottawa and we discovered oh wait, they are a bunch of Indians. Not white supremacists at all. I dont know the statistic, but pretty significant portion of truckers are Indian. The number of videos mocking the propaganda media where not-white people are claiming to be white supremacists is pretty hilarious. Then the media spun it again and now people believe the protest is against masks? LOL? They raised significant $ on gofundme, who seized the funds and at first were going to be donating to left-wing charities. They have since autorefunded. However, what was the rule that they broke? It actually required the government to label the protest a military occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupation This designation is very narrow international definition. The allegation by the Canadian government is that they lost control of Ottawa to the protestors. This fringe minority trucker convoy who hasn't invaded any buildings is labelled a military occupation in order to remove their human/charter rights. It's worse, the propaganda media labelled the solidarity protests in various cities around the country as a 'nation-wide insurrection' The ottawa police have also started arresting anyone who is bringing 'material support' to the military occupation. So why the sudden need for an online censorship bill? The government who clearly removed the protestors human rights wish to go further. Remove their ability to counter the clear propaganda being produced against them. Canada who has some of the most strict covid restrictions is ignoring the protestors and not joining much of Europe by returning our rights. They are planning to remove more of our human rights. In other news: https://twitter.com/ChrisEnsingCBC/status/1490889483553705987 https://twitter.com/ChrisEnsingCBC/status/149088948355370598... This bridge isn't the only way in and out but this shutting down is huge. Not much of a fringe minority eh?

115 points by andrenth 5y ago

Really surprised to see such a low quality editorial from such a weak newspaper as the Toronto Sun on HN. Here's some actual expert content on this issue: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/02/not-ready-for-prime-time/ https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/02/not-ready-for-prime-time...

fartcannon 5y ago
Agreed, but the two sources are in agreement. It often feels like Canada is run by two groups: the energy companies on the centre-right, and the oligarchy of media giants on centre-left. Here we see the media companies pushing Trudeau. We could regain our voting power with something better than FPTP.
- mig39 5y ago
  Trudeau famously promised to abolish FPTP. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-vows-to-end-1st-past-the-post-voting-in-platform-speech-1.3114902 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-vows-to-end-...
  - nameisname 5y ago
    He wouldn't have won the last election if he did.
- multiplegeorges 5y ago
  They do agree, but if you only read the editorial you wouldn't be anymore informed than you were before. Except now you may think "Trudeau bad" with little to back up that opinion. At least Geist goes into the substance of the legislation and the very real risks it poses. You forgot the third leg on the Canadian oligarchy stool: banks. FPTP can't die soon enough.
ipaddr 5y ago
The article was informative and inline with other media news sources posted on hn. I've never heard a newspaper described as weak before, what strength should they possess that they lack.
- wk_end 5y ago
  I'd say a strong news source probably doesn't need to lean on a "Sunshine Girl" [0] to sell papers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Girl
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Don't they have a sunshine boy as well? Seems fair and well within my liberal worldview (a nude body isn't a sin). It is probably time we accepted a more mature view of the human body. It always wondered why killing someone is acceptable at 8 or 9 but nudity is forbidden in primetime.
    - wk_end 5y ago
      No, they don’t. And while I’m not against nudity (though there’s no nudity in the Toronto Sun), sticking some T&A in your tabloid to boost your appeal to the horny demographic is the opposite of a “mature view of the human body”.
- rbobby 5y ago
  As a Torontonian... the Sun isn't much of a paper. Good for sports and fish wrap. Breathless crime reporting too. City politics. That's about it.
AlexandrB 5y ago
> Really surprised to see such a low quality editorial from such a weak newspaper as the Toronto Sun on HN. Indeed. I wonder if the print version ran this next to the "Sunshine Girl".
clove 5y ago
Wait, why are you surprised to see "low quality" from a "weak newspaper?" Shouldn't that have been expected? Did you misspeak or am I missing something?
- hiyer 5y ago
  They were surprised to see it "on HN". OTOH despite the poor quality, the article seems to have spawned a healthy discussion, so maybe it belongs here after all :-).

YaBomm 5y ago

iqanq 5y ago

908B64B197 5y ago

This isn’t surprising. The father suspended the constitution (because that’s a thing over there??) over a manufactured panic over terrorists planting bombs in mailbox (Feds later got busted doing it, quite literally red-handed) [0]. He also maintained a close personal friendship with dictators such as Fidel Castro [1] [2], a man of great respect for humans right who didn’t hesitate to round up the gays in labor camps. Seems like the son is trying to do the same with the truckers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversies_involving_the_Royal_Canadian_Mounted_Police#Break-ins_and_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversies_involvin... [1] https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/world/justin-trudeau-castro-eulogy-parody/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/world/justin-trudeau-castro-e... [2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-justin-trudeau-castro_n_583a000ce4b09b605600b793 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-justin-trudeau-castr...

drno123 5y ago
AlexandrB 5y ago
[flagged]
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > but Donald Trump called MBS his "friend" after he had a US journalist chopped up in an embassy He did so while giving billions to their worst enemy (Israel). > That's not even mentioning the cozy relationship between Trump and Putin. I remember 4 years of the news telling me the "indictments" for collusion with Russia were "about to drop any day now". And yet nothing happened.
- api 5y ago
  Money has always trumped (pun intended? up to you) ethics and principle when it comes to foreign policy in the US. Saudi Arabia has a lot of money so they can do what they want. It's probably the same in Canada.
nneonneo 5y ago

sebastianconcpt 5y ago

Are we one step closer to loose freedom of expression?

thomassmith65 5y ago

stackedinserter 5y ago

Where is Trudeau BTW? He's been hiding somewhere since truckers' protest started.

afterburner 5y ago
He tested positive for COVID. https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1488162322187182085 https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1488162322187182085 Doug Ford, Conservative Premier of Ontario, has actually been hiding, no COVID excuse and no one's even threatening to overthrow him.
- giancarlostoro 5y ago
  Would be nice if you provided a reference about Doug Ford hiding, or if he's just adhering to current law in his country.
  - afterburner 5y ago
    > or if he's just adhering to current law in his country What does this even mean. He's making no public statements, that's what it means for a politician to be "hidden". Meanwhile Trudeau has made several damning statements about the trucker convoy.
    - giancarlostoro 5y ago
      I wasn't familiar with that use of the word hidden. I thought you meant physically in hiding, because Trudeau is physically hiding.
      - afterburner 5y ago
        I didn't realize you needed to know the exact whereabouts of the Canadian Prime Minister at all times. Aren't you happy to not be seeing him anyways?
        5y ago

agentultra 5y ago

CountDrewku 5y ago

mmastrac 5y ago

Sorry, this is a very low-quality source for this discussion.

mgamache 5y ago

Is there any compelling reason to limit free speech on social media by the government? There are already laws covering speech limits. Speech limits are myopic in nature, they solve a short term problem by muzzling specific people/views. But, they usually create longer term negative effects that are more difficult to see in the moment.

didibus 5y ago
The CRTC regulations on broadcaster covers the following categories: > Protection of children. > Restrictions against hate speech. > Protection of national production and national culture. > Right of reply. > Restriction on the quantity of advertising, of ad for certain products (tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs), and on product placement Today, no internet company is considered a "broadcaster", and thus is unregulated by the CRTC. The bill is to propose redefining what counts as a broadcaster so that online businesses also fall under the regulations. At a high level, I think it means Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, etc. The issue is that the internet made it easy for everyone to become a broadcaster. So the question with the bill is how will you distinguish an individual broadcasting a video they made, from a broadcasting business or entity that would need regulating? And when would an individual broadcaster become an entity in need of regulating? Is having 100 million subscriber something that makes you an entity needing to be regulated? Is it if you make money from it? Is it if you're paid by others for what you broadcast? Then there's also the question of what is a broadcast? Must it include video, must it include audio, what about images? Or video games? Or texts? Or other forms of multimedia?

didibus 5y ago

While the details of the bill maybe needs another iteration, I feel the spirit of the bill makes sense to me, and I think the issues around it should be discussed. Legislature hasn't caught up with the internet. > The CRTC will develop and implement regulations to ensure that both traditional and online broadcasting services, including web giants, offer meaningful levels of Canadian content and contribute to the creation of Canadian content in both official languages That's generally been what the CRTC does, it makes sure that broadcasters have enough Canadian made content compared to non-canadian made content, and to also make sure it has content in both official languages, as well as to help support and promote content from minorities. And that the content meets some expected standards, like not advertising things to children or medical that aren't allowed in Canada. > Protection of children. > Restrictions against hate speech. > Protection of national production and national culture. > Right of reply. > Restriction on the quantity of advertising, of ad for certain products (tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs), and on product placement These are the regulations currently applied to broadcasters. The problematic ones for the internet would probably be the first two. The last three, I think most people would be quite happy to see more enforcement around for internet platforms. Now for the first two, you can argue that the fine line between protecting children and hate speech could be used to censor anything that opposes the current ruling party. This greatly depends if you believe in Canada's institutions as fighting for democracy and liberty, which I think is more common in Canada, or if, like most Americans, you believe in the government institutions as constantly being the enemy of democracy and liberty and something the citizen need to constantly take upon themselves to watchdog. That said, I believe there are other checks and balances that can be put in place here. As long as there would be mechanisms to challenge rulings, and that all such regulations was still done transparently. And that there were relatively unambiguous guidelines. And that there were still clear ways to publish things on the internet that are bad for children and hateful but wouldn't fall under broadcasting regulations, such as say your own website, email, downloadable content, etc. In any case, I'm not here to spin my opinion of this, I'm not sure exactly what the reasonable set of rules and regulations should be here. But I'm just saying I think it needs to be discussed. Most people probably don't know that broadcasters currently must abide by this regulation, and that internet streaming platforms don't have too. So I think educating about these and discussing what regulation makes sense and what doesn't needs to happen.

sleepingadmin 5y ago

So lets discuss what happened here. In the middle of January the federal government made it mandatory to get vaccinated. Effectively putting many Truckers out of a job. They are also denied any benefits. So what are they to do? Tons of other major countries have already removed all restrictions. UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, etc. So we are sitting here wondering what's wrong with our government. Hence the now unemployed truckers went to Ottawa to protest. Which is their human right? Even their charter right? Before they arrived in Ottawa, 1 guy with a nazi flag walked around all over Ottawa and had photographers following him. There's a pretty large bounty to identify this dude, yet nobody can seem to do it. However, the stories wrote themselves. From our state propaganda... They are a fringe minority of white supremacist truckers. Very unusually there were updates from the police on the highways saying the convoy was tiny, only a few trucks. Like an attempt to label this fringe minority tiny and can be ignored? Very unusual, never seen the police do this before. The trucker convoy showed up in Ottawa and we discovered oh wait, they are a bunch of Indians. Not white supremacists at all. I dont know the statistic, but pretty significant portion of truckers are Indian. The number of videos mocking the propaganda media where not-white people are claiming to be white supremacists is pretty hilarious. Then the media spun it again and now people believe the protest is against masks? LOL? They raised significant $ on gofundme, who seized the funds and at first were going to be donating to left-wing charities. They have since autorefunded. However, what was the rule that they broke? It actually required the government to label the protest a military occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupation This designation is very narrow international definition. The allegation by the Canadian government is that they lost control of Ottawa to the protestors. This fringe minority trucker convoy who hasn't invaded any buildings is labelled a military occupation in order to remove their human/charter rights. It's worse, the propaganda media labelled the solidarity protests in various cities around the country as a 'nation-wide insurrection' The ottawa police have also started arresting anyone who is bringing 'material support' to the military occupation. So why the sudden need for an online censorship bill? The government who clearly removed the protestors human rights wish to go further. Remove their ability to counter the clear propaganda being produced against them. Canada who has some of the most strict covid restrictions is ignoring the protestors and not joining much of Europe by returning our rights. They are planning to remove more of our human rights. In other news: https://twitter.com/ChrisEnsingCBC/status/1490889483553705987 https://twitter.com/ChrisEnsingCBC/status/149088948355370598... This bridge isn't the only way in and out but this shutting down is huge. Not much of a fringe minority eh?