Canada’s Bill C-63 takes aim at online hate crimes and child exploitation

The government of Canada has unveiled its long-awaited Online Harms Act aimed at addressing child exploitation and hateful content online. Introduced in the House of Commons on Monday, Bill C-63 lays out a regulatory framework covering major social media platforms, user-uploaded adult content services, and live-streaming services. Along with a series of legislative reforms, the bill is focused on reducing childrens’ exposure to harmful content, creating a formal content reporting system, and increasing the punishments for hate crimes. The bill is targeted towards seven categories of “harmful content,” including content that sexually victimizes a child, incites violent extremism, induces a child to harm themselves, and intimate content shared without consent, including deepfakes. “We have rigorous safety standards for things like my son's Lego at home, but somehow none for the most dangerous toy – not just in my home, but every Canadian home – the screen that is in front of our children's faces,” said Minister of Justice Arif Virani, the parliamentarian who tabled the bill, during a press conference. Online services that pass a certain user threshold – to be determined by regulations – will be required to provide tools for users to flag harmful content, create an internal point of contact for user complaints, and identify and report on measures taken to reduce exposure to harmful content. The bill also imposes on platforms the duty to protect children through age-appropriate design. Examples the government gave included features like parental controls, content warning labels, safe search settings, and rules around targeted advertising and data collection. Virani emphasized that private and encrypted messaging services are excluded from the regulations, citing controversies that emerged in the United Kingdom as it drafted its own Online Safety Act. “They received a lot of negative feedback about the specific challenges that could have for freedom of expression,” he said, explaining that the government has learned from the experiences of other countries legislating in this area, including France, Germany, and Australia. Enforcing these rules will be the responsibility of the newly proposed Digital Safety Commission, made up of five members to be appointed by the governor in council. This new regulator would be permitted to order content reported by users to be removed within 24 hours. It will also be able to impose fines on online services found breaking the rules, requiring offending platforms to pay up to six per cent of their global revenue or $10 million, whichever is greater. If ignored, those fines can increase to eight per cent or $25 million, whichever is greater. “That is a significant message to the platforms in Canada that their profit imperative solely cannot drive what is happening in Canada any longer,” said Virani, “safety has to be part of the equation.” The bill also proposes the creation of a Digital Safety Ombudsperson, whose role will be to advocate for the protection of users and provide them with information on the complaints process. The ombudsperson will also make recommendations to online services, the commission, and the government on navigating the new framework. Bill C-63 proposes amendments to the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service. These amendments will define “hatred” in the Criminal Code and establish a new standalone hate crime offense, making hateful conduct a crime in itself. Currently, it only exists as an aggravating factor in determining a sentence. They will also raise the maximum sentence for advocating for genocide from five years to life imprisonment, and hate propaganda from two years to five years when prosecuted by indictment. The amendments also aim to extend data preservation rules and the limitation period for prosecution regarding criminal investigations of child pornography, as well as allow the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to settle disputes regarding hate speech complaints, giving them the power to order the speech’s removal and to compensate victims up to $20,000. – Reporting by Phalen Tynes-MacDonald at pcreed@thewirereport.ca.

Canada’s Bill C-63 takes aim at online hate crimes and child exploitation

News | February 26, 2024

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Canada’s Bill C-63 takes aim at online hate crimes and child exploitation

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