Press freedom in Canada restricted in 2024, says U.S. State Dept. report

The U.S. State Department's annual global survey of human rights included "credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression and press freedom" in Canada during 2024.  

2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Canada | U.S. Department of State | Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | Executive Summary 

"There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Canada during the year. Significant human rights issues included credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists and activists.... The law provided for freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, and the government generally respected this right. An independent media, an effective judiciary, and a functioning democratic political system combined to promote freedom of expression, including for media members, although significant curtailments of press freedom remained.

• The law criminalized 'hate speech' in any public place and defined it as communication that incited hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement was likely to lead to a breach of the peace or communication that willfully promoted hatred against any identifiable group, other than in private conversation. The maximum penalty was two years’ imprisonment.
• The public media and majority of private media were substantially dependent on government sources of funding for their activities. Government intervention in the media market favored means of communication that did not diverge from government-suggested bounds of political speech, and government policy and practices often disadvantaged independent media. 
• The government used a variety of mechanisms to fund public and private sector media in the country, ranging from direct grants and tax credits to mandatory payments and funds collected from broadcasters, streaming services, and news platforms, but distributed or regulated by the government. News organizations faced direct and indirect pressure to conform their political speech in order to gain or maintain access to these funds, leading to self-censorship. Independent news organizations that did not take government funds faced a substantial market disadvantage.
• During the year, the Online News Act of 2023 came into force. The law required large digital media platforms pay news businesses when their content appeared on the platform. The law empowered the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to set mandatory bargaining guidelines between platforms and news businesses and to otherwise enforce and set regulatory guidance for the act, including codes of conduct and eligibility of news businesses to participate, powers which could be used to discriminate against political speech or disfavored independent media outlets.
• In September, a Federal Court judge upheld the government’s decision to disqualify an independent news organization from journalism tax credits. The organization was one of the few in the country that produced critical reporting on the government’s response to protests of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
• In March, the government announced a grant of 58.8 million Canadian dollars (CAD) ($43.2 million) to extend the Local Journalism Initiative to 2027 that funded media organizations to hire journalists or pay freelance journalists to produce civic journalism for “underserved communities” across the country. The funding brought total government support for initiative to CAD 94.7 million ($69.6 million) over eight years since its launch in 2019. Independent media organizations without access to these funds faced increased market pressure. The Changing Narrative Fund revenue stream of the initiative, announced during the year, prioritized funding for hiring journalists in the 'Indigenous, Black, racialized, ethno-religious minority, people with disabilities and 2SLGBTQI+ communities,' discriminating against journalists who fell outside of these favored categories.
• In January, Edmonton police arrested Indigenous journalist Brandi Morin on assignment with Ricochet Media for obstruction for conducting interviews with residents at an Indigenous-led homeless encampment when police arrived to dismantle the encampment. Police detained Morin for several hours, although Morin had identified herself as a journalist. Authorities dropped charges against Morin in  March after prosecutors determined no public interest was served in pursuing the case.
• In May, a member of parliament of the governing party and other officials allegedly attempted to use supposed security threats to impose unreasonably high security charges (more than the costs of the events otherwise) on two independent media organizations’ events. The organizations alleged that they were targeted for their political speech and had a lawsuit pending.
• Rather than participate in government-mandated bargaining, some American digital platforms announced that they would no longer make news content available to Canadian users, leading to substantial censorship of news content including local news content. The opposition party described the Online News Act as a government censorship law, because of its effects on the character and quality of the country’s news reporting.

Chris Barber and Tamara Lich. CBC photos.

• A trial of two organizers of the 2022 'Freedom Convoy' concluded during the year. A verdict was still pending at year’s end. In response to the 2022 convoy (which protested draconian lockdown measures that substantially damaged the communities and economic livelihoods of many Canadians), the government took the unprecedented step of invoking the Emergencies Act, leading to large-scale social media censorship and debanking. In January, the Federal Court ruled that the government’s imposition of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The federal government appealed the decision.
• The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) continued its legal efforts to block an independent news outlet’s Access to Information request for CBC’s communications with American social media platform Twitter (now X) dating to 2018. The news outlet previously published investigative reporting alleging that the CBC exerted pressure on Twitter/X to censor it and other disfavored news outlets over political speech.

Read more: https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/canada

Ron Paul: Free speech is worth fighting for

Free Speech is Worth Fighting For | Ron Paul Institute | Ron Paul:

March 31, 2025 - "Our Founders, particularly James Madison who drafted the Bill of Rights, understood that our rights are not privileges granted to us by government. No, it was understood at the founding that these basic natural rights outlined by Madison were granted by our Creator and thus no mere mortal could take them away. And first among these is the First Amendment which recognizes that most basic of our natural rights: the right to express ourselves in any way we wish.

Ron Paul in 2012. Photo: David Carlyon.

CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

"Unfortunately the US government has not always been in accord with this sentiment and has many times in our history been at war with our freedom of speech. From the alien and sedition acts at the beginning of our republic to Abraham Lincoln’s war on speech to the jailing of antiwar activists during both World Wars to Kent State, the political class is all for free speech unless it is threatening to the political class.

"Recently a new front has been opened in the war on free speech ... one that Americans must take seriously. On university campuses across the country students – both American and foreign guests – have taken to protesting US support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, where tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed. The political class in the United States is determined to defend Israel from its critics and has responded to these protests by threatening and blackmailing the universities if they do not crack down on speech the powers-that-be do not like. 

"Both Presidents Biden and Trump have used the power of US government funding to demand a crackdown on speech they don’t like, with President Trump recently pulling 400 million dollars in federal funding for Columbia University if they don’t silence the protesters. The real scandal is that nearly every US university – both public and “private” – is government funded in the first place. But for politicians to use the power of the purse to deny students the right to express themselves – as long as peaceful – just adds insult to injury.

"Last week a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University was arrested on the street by plainclothes government agents for reportedly simply writing an editorial in her university newspaper expressing her views on the Israel/Palestine conflict. She faces deportation from the country. And she is not alone. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly bragged about sending hundreds of students home because they express a political position he disagrees with. Others – including American citizens – have been expelled from their schools and have even had their degrees rescinded. For peacefully expressing a political position that powerful people in Washington disagree with.

"You may also [disagree] with the political position of these students. But to cheer their punishment by the US government is to turn your back on the founding principles of this country. Freedom of speech is a natural right not reserved for American citizens but for all of humanity. And it has been a natural right worth defending for nearly 250 years.

"First they came for foreign students expressing controversial positions and many Americans cheered because they were not foreign and did not like the opinions. But make no mistake: this war on speech will not end with only foreigners being punished. It never does."

Copyright © 2025 The Ron Paul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Read more: https://ronpaulinstitute.org/free-speech-is-worth-fighting-for/ 

The smearing of Roger Waters

Baseless claims on social media that former Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters used anti-semitic imagery at recent concerts in Berlin are being elevated by media figures and politicians who detest his involvement in the BDS movement and his calls for peace negotiations in Ukraine.

Roger Waters’s Critics Are Smearing Him as Antisemitic Because They Hate His Pro-Palestine Activism | The Jacobin | Chip Gibbons:

June 2, 2023 - "If you’ve been on social media lately, you’ve possibly seen outraged claims about Roger Waters’s recent performances in Berlin. The former Pink Floyd member’s support for Palestinian human rights and calls for peace negotiations in Ukraine have long garnered a litany of demagogic critics. As part of their campaign against him, they’re now disseminating claims that, during the Berlin performances, Waters dressed up as a Nazi SS officer while disrespecting the memory of Anne Frank and those who died in the Holocaust — all while flying a pig balloon emblazoned with a Jewish Star of David..... The central claims against Waters, however, are a mixture of distortions and outright falsehoods.... 

• Since the band’s 1980 tour for The Wall, Waters’s performances have featured a theatrical element in which he assumes the role of a fictional fascist demagogue (the uniform that critics claimed was a literal SS uniform has now been demoted to merely a 'Nazi-style costume'); this was true of his 1990 historic performance in Berlin to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall. Waters’s performances have up to this point always been understood as condemning, not exalting, fascism.
• As for the balloon, as left-wing British writer Alex Nunns has pointed out, the photographs purporting to show an inflatable pig with a Star of David on it are not from Waters’s Berlin performance. A review of videos of the performance reveal they are not even the same color as the balloon Waters used in Berlin.
• Claims that Waters insulted Anne Frank are simply a malicious lie. Waters featured the name of Anne Frank in a montage of individuals murdered by state actors, in many cases due to racial prejudice. This did not occur during the part of his concert that satirizes a fascist rally. Waters’s performance made clear Frank was the victim of the Nazi genocide because of her Jewish identity.

"That false claims are being made about Waters is not the only disturbing aspect of this episode. What is especially troubling is how quickly these claims made it into mainstream media with little fact-checking. Now even politicians and law enforcement are taking them up.... The official Twitter accounts of the states of Israel and Ukraine have amplified them with surreal, juvenile tweets.... US State Department and European Union officials have also taken to official social media accounts to blast Waters and parrot the claims against him.... 

"The campaign against Waters soon jumped from social media into mainstream media. In early reports, Waters critics’ key claims were parroted without any fact-checking. Some of the articles included pictures of the pig-shaped balloon with a Star of David that allegedly was flown in the Berlin arena. As a result, Berlin police have opened a criminal investigation into Waters. British Labour MP Christian Wakeford is calling for Waters’s performances to be banned, explicitly citing the pig balloon as justification.... 

 "The only word to describe what is happening is disinformation. The impetus behind it is not a specific Waters performance, but an attempt to destroy his character made by those with larger disagreements with his political commitments. Mainstream media, far from acting as fact-checkers, have helped to aid the spread of lies with its early uncritical reporting on Waters’s attackers. Although panic about disinformation has spurred calls for censorship and spawned a cottage industry of experts, the campaign against Waters has conveniently not been viewed through the lens of disinformation....

"The current campaign against Waters has nothing to do with this specific theatrical performance. In 2006, Waters was asked to perform in Tel Aviv, Israel. At the urging of Palestinians, Waters visited the occupied Palestinian territories, and as a result of what he saw, he heeded their call not to perform in Tel Aviv.... Since then, he has become one of the most high-profile celebrity supporters of the growing BDS movement.... But supporters of Palestinian rights face heightened harassment. In 2017, public officials in Nassau County, New York, citing a local anti-BDS law, attempted to have his concert canceled. That same year, a number of German broadcasters refused to carry a Waters concert over his BDS stance. On his current tour, the city of Frankfurt tried to ban Waters from performing over his alleged antisemitism. A court ruled in Waters’s favor....

"Waters has [also] recently come under fire for his statements on Ukraine. Waters has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine as illegal, but has also accused Joe Biden of fueling a horrendous war by refusing to negotiate, and has criticized the role of NATO expansion in setting the stage for the conflict. Earlier during the tour, when a CNN interviewer pushed Waters about why he included Joe Biden in the montage of war criminals in his performance (during the song 'The Bravery of Being Out of Range,' in which Waters profiles the war crimes of all US presidents since Ronald Reagan), CNN aired a heavily redacted version of his comments on Ukraine. Waters has in the past been criticized directly by the Ukrainian government and has said he’s been added to a Ukrainian kill list. His concerts in Poland were canceled over his views on Ukraine.

"Like everyone in a free society, critics of Waters’s political views are welcome to disagree with him. Repeatedly, however, they have sought to censor him; in order to achieve these ends, they have turned to a campaign of disinformation. Although disinformation has been a continuous source of panic in the United States since the 2016 election, disinformation campaigns against critics of US policy seem to get a free pass."

Read more: https://jacobin.com/2023/06/roger-waters-berlin-antisemitism-accusations-media-disinformation

Roger Waters sets the record straight on bogus accusations of antisemitism against him | DiEM25 | June 8, 2023:

UK doctors face sanctions for social media posts

Doctors could be struck off for spreading fake news on vaccines and lockdowns | The Telegraph - Laura Donnelly:

April 27, 2022 - "Doctors who criticise vaccines or lockdown policies on social media could face being struck off if regulators rule they are guilty of spreading fake news.... The core guidance for medics has been updated for the first time in almost a decade to cover media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The rules on use of social media include a duty to be 'honest' and 'not to mislead', as well as to avoid abuse or bullying.

"The draft regulations from the General Medical Council (GMC) - which the watchdog describes as a 21st-century version of the Hippocratic Oath - also say doctors must speak out if they encounter 'toxic' workplace cultures that threaten patient safety. And they say medics must take action if they encounter workplace bullying, harassment or discrimination.

"The watchdog regulates doctors, who can face a range of sanctions - including being struck off the medical register - if they are found to have failed in their duties.

Charlie Massey, the chief executive of the GMC, said ... the fundamental principles of the guidance remained the same, but had been updated to reflect the modern world. 'We’ve had feedback that doctors want more clarity on using social media. We are already clear that doctors must be honest and trustworthy in their communications, and are now emphasising that this applies to all forms of communication. The principles remain the same whether the communication is written, spoken or via social media,' he said.

"The use of social media by medics has become an increasingly vexed issue during the pandemic. In December a judge ruled that the GMC’s interim orders tribunal had made an 'error of law' when it ordered a GP accused of spreading misinformation to stop discussing Covid on social media. Dr Samuel White, who was a partner at a practice in Hampshire, raised concerns about vaccines and claimed 'masks do nothing' in a video posted last June. The GMC’s Interim Orders Tribunal imposed restrictions on Dr White's registration as a result. But the High Court said this decision was 'wrong' under human rights law.... 

[T]he tribunal [had] concluded Dr White's way of sharing his views 'may have a real impact on patient safety'. It found Dr White allegedly shared information to a 'wide and possibly uninformed audience' and did not give an opportunity for 'a holistic consideration of Covid-19, its implications and possible treatments'. But the GP's barrister, Francis Hoar, argued the restrictions imposed on his client's registration were a 'severe imposition' on his freedom of expression.

"The draft guidance says doctors can be held accountable for promoting misleading information or stepping outside areas of their expertise. They are told to 'be honest and trustworthy … make clear the limits of your knowledge.. [and to] make reasonable checks to make sure any information you give is not misleading. This applies to all forms of written, spoken and digital communication,' the draft guidance states.

"And doctors are warned that online rows and trolling could jeopardise their professional futures. 'You must not abuse, discriminate against, bully, exploit, or harass anyone, or condone such behaviour by others. This applies to all interactions, including on social media and networking sites,' the draft rules state."

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/27/doctors-could-struck-spreading-fake-news-vaccines-lockdowns/

Russian gov't cracks down on independent media

Putin Shuts Down Russia’s Free Press for Reporting Accurately on Ukraine | Nieman Reports - Elizaveta Kuzetsova:

Photo: Washington Standard

March 9, 2022 - "On the morning of March 4, the last remaining independent news outlet in Russia – the award-winning Novaya Gazeta – announced the end of its reporting on the war in Ukraine in response to Russian government demands. A new law that bans the 'dissemination of knowingly false information' about the Russian armed forces – and carries up to a 15-year penalty – was the final blow.... This came a day after the independent TV channel Dozhd announced a temporary suspension of its operation in its broadcast on March 3.... Over the course of just one week, the independent media landscape in Russia has been shuttered, returning the country to the pre-Perestroyka state without any semblance of a free press. Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor has blocked access to several independent media outlets, including MediaZona, Meduza, Nastoyashee Vremya, The New Times, Doxa, The Village, and Tayga.Info.... Many international media corporations, including CNN, BBC, Bloomberg News, ABC, CBS News, and Radio Liberty, have been forced to suspend operations in Russia.

"The new law curbing what journalists can say about the military is essentially censorship of what journalists can say about the invasion of Ukraine. Any data on casualties or information on the resistance the Ukrainians are mounting could be considered 'fake information.' Under the legislation, truthful reporting of the conflict is nearly impossible. 'It has been decided to eradicate journalism entirely and to put all disagreeable behind bars,” said Sergey Smirnov, the editor-in-chief of MediaZona, an independent investigative outlet.... Controlling the narrative is particularly important for the Russian government amid the lack of support for the war and the growing dissent in the country....

"For years, independent media in Russia have reported on corruption, protests, and politics, reaching their audiences online often through social media. The daily number of subscribers of news channels on Telegram, a cloud-based messaging app, has grown by an estimated 3.5 to 5 million per day since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, according to TGStat.ru, a non-profit project that tracks the platform. But social media is not immune to state control and state propaganda, and the online news environment is often used to amplify confusion and misinformation.

"Tech companies are under pressure from both sides of the conflict, which can result in questionable decisions that further aggravate the situation for independent outlets. Echo Moskvy, an independent radio station controlled by Russian state-owned company Gazprom-Media, reported being suspended by YouTube and Twitter even though the outlet maintained editorial independence and provided truthful reporting. Coincidentally, on March 3, the board of directors of Echo Moskvy decided to liquidate the outlet and, according to its editor-in-chief Aleksey Venediktov, after Russian officials blocked its website over its reporting on Ukraine. Its dissolution is symbolic as the Russian government’s decision to spare the outlet from repression until now helped maintain at least a façade of freedom of press in the country.

"Without independent media, the Russian public will become hostage to the state narrative about 'the special operation' aimed at “de-nazification” of Ukraine, as Moscow describes its war against the country. In fact, the use of the word 'war' to refer to the conflict in Ukraine is prohibited in Russia....  Blocked independent outlets will continue to fight for their right to report through the courts. However, the situation will only intensify as the war in Ukraine goes on. With many journalists fleeing Russia, independent reporting is still possible from abroad. And local audiences can use VPN connections to access blocked sites and social media. But without international support free press in Russia will not survive, and the isolation of the Russian audience will continue. 'Right now, independent journalism can survive only outside of Russia,' said Smirnov."
Read more: https://niemanreports.org/articles/putin-ukraine-russia-media/

Russia Restricts Instagram, Opens Case Against Meta For Reported Hate-Speech Changes | Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty:

March 11, 2022 - "Russia is opening a criminal case against Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and moved to label it an 'extremist organization' over reported changes in its rules that allow some users to call for violence against Russia's army and its leadership in the context of the war in Ukraine. The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said on March 11 that it was launching an investigation 'due to illegal calls for the murder of Russian nationals by employees of the American company Meta'.... The moves were sparked by a March 10 report by Reuters that internal e-mails show Meta Platforms will permit Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers after Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24....

"Separately on March 11, Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said it will restrict access to Instagram across the country at the request of the Prosecutor-General's Office. 'The Instagram social network distributes information and materials that contain calls for implementing violent actions against citizens of the Russian Federation, including military personnel,' Roskomnadzor said in a statement.... Earlier on March 11, the Russian Embassy to the United States demanded that Washington ... 'stop the extremist activities of Meta and take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice.'"
Read more: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-meta-charges-hate-speech/31748326.html 

Biden wants Facebook to do more deplatforming

Facebook is caught between two political parties, both of which want to control it and tell it whom to platform; and however it responds will only increase anger at it.

The Government Should Stop Telling Facebook To Suppress COVID-19 'Misinformation' | Reason - Robby Soave:

July 15, 2021 - "The federal government is stepping up its effort to purge the internet of COVID-19 'misinformation.' On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki singled out a dozen specific anti-vaccine Facebook accounts and called on the platform to ban them....

"The federal government is not explicitly ordering tech platforms to take down content. These dictates are essentially strongly-worded suggestions. But you're forgiven if you think Psaki's summary of the report sounded like a command. 'Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts,' she said. 'Posts that would be within their policy for removal often remain up for days, and that's too long. The information spreads too quickly.'

"Psaki was alluding to anti-vaccine content, though the report itself impugns 'medical misinformation' more broadly. Of course, the government itself has spread plenty of 'medical misinformation,' from the early bad guidance on masks to White House coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci's deliberate misstatements about the herd immunity threshold. For months, government health officials treated the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins as a wild conspiracy theory, and Facebook followed suit: It vigorously censored content that promoted the lab leak theory. That policy was not revised until June.

"Efforts by the government and tech platforms to suppress misinformation have undeniably resulted sometimes in the suppression of information that is ... or could plausibly turn out to be factual. (This has been the case outside the realm of pandemic-related content as well.) New initiatives undertaken by the federal government that would encourage Facebook to be even more heavy-handed with potential misinformation should be met with skepticism: The track record is just not very encouraging.

"The White House's targeting of Facebook should make critics a little sympathetic to Mark Zuckerberg's position. Prominent legislators from both political parties — as well as the current and former presidents — want to aggressively regulate his company if not break it apart entirely. Facebook's CEO must feel tremendous pressure to give federal health bureacrats exactly what they're asking for, or else.

"Instead of defending the rights of private companies to set their own moderation policies independent of whatever the government would like them to do, Republicans are taking this opportunity to further erode Facebook's autonomy. Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) even suggested that the site's submission to the feds renders it an agent of the state.... Hawley is essentially saying that a private company complying with the government becomes a state actor, and thus should be bound to the same restrictions as any other public agency. But Hawley and others are also attempting to punish these same private companies for not doing what [they want]. (In Hawley's case, he wants Facebook to suppress fewer posts.) That's quite a Catch-22: Facebook is in trouble either way."

Read more: https://reason.com/2021/07/15/covid-19-vaccines-misinformation-jen-psaki-white-house-biden/

Twitter and LinkedIn blocking criticism of China

Make Them Pay | Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) - Edward Lucas: 

July 6, 2021 - "My friend Anne-Marie Brady is one of the world’s top China-watchers. Twitter has just made her invisible. Anyone trying to visit @anne_mariebrady this weekend was stopped by a warning screen. Some recent tweets, mocking the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary, are 'unavailable'. Searches for her draw a blank. She is also locked out of her account. She can no longer post any further tweets, message people — or complain to Twitter.

"This probably results from a concerted campaign by the Chinese Communist Party’s online agents. Enough complaints usually trigger an automated block. The user is left fuming and powerless. In effect, the Chinese Communist Party is extending its control into the heart of a free society.

"A few days earlier, I changed my profile on LinkedIn. It recently warned some prominent critics of the Beijing regime that their user profiles will not be visible in mainland China because they breach local laws.

"I decided to test this. I added some details about my weekly newsletter, the China Influence Monitor. This highlights, I explained, attempts 'to marginalize Taiwan (Republic of China)..,[and]..to erase Tibetan and East Turkestan identity'. I added crisp mentions of the underground church and Tiananmen Square: all the taboo terms I could think of, in fact.

"This worked beautifully. Within hours LinkedIn sent a polite, opaque email. I too was blocked....

"I want to know why LinkedIn, or its owners at Microsoft, started snooping on its users’ choice of language about China. Was it preemptive? Or was the company instructed to do it? If so, who gave the order, when, and in what terms?

"LinkedIn will not say. I passed the story to the London Times. Colleagues there could not get an answer either. Nor could British MPs who happened to be quizzing a Microsoft executive at a parliamentary committee hearing last week....

"These companies enjoy the advantages of a free political and legal system when they express their views and defend their interests. Their intellectual property and contracts are protected by laws made not by bureaucratic fiat but by elected legislators, and enforced by impartial courts. Good luck trying any of that in China or Russia. But these behemoths do not exert themselves to protect the system that enables their success. They prefer convenience, growth, and profit.

"This spells doom for democracy. We rely on emails, websites, search engines, mobile phones, and social media at all levels, from national campaigns to private messaging. But these systems are wide open to attack, be it disruption, fakery, or snooping.... Mischievous and malevolent outsiders can spy on us, distort our perception of reality, and shape our decision-making."

Read more: https://cepa.org/make-them-pay/

#ChristchurchCall wants online speech controlled

Prince Harry's First Amendment Aversion Is Funny; the Governments That Agree Are Scary | Reason - J.D. Tuccille: 

May 21, 2021 - "'Instead of thinking about content moderation through an individualistic lens typical of constitutional jurisprudence, platforms, regulators, and the public at large need to recognize that the First Amendment–inflected approach to online speech governance that dominated the early internet no longer holds,' writes Harvard Law School lecturer Evelyn Douek in an April 2021 Columbia Law Review article. 'Instead, platforms are now firmly in the business of balancing societal interests and choosing between error costs on a systemic basis.'

"The catalyst for this shift away from First Amendment-style speech protection by the tech giants was COVID-19, claims the Australian academic, who approves of the transformation. She sees lasting effects beyond social media.... Douek cites a pre-pandemic paper by Harvard Law School's Jonathan Zittrain who unintentionally anticipated the impact of COVID-19 when he observed that the treatment of speech is moving to a 'public health framework [that] is much more geared around risks and benefits than around individual rights.'

"Among the lawmakers treating speech as a health threat are French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who have joined together with other political and tech leaders to demand tighter regulation of online speech. New Zealand's prime minister, in particular, wants digital media companies to implement 'ethical algorithms' to steer people away from material of which the authorities disapprove and toward content that they prefer. 'Let's have that conversation around the ethical use of algorithms, and how they can use be used in a positive way and for positive interventions,' Ardern last week told a conference of participants in Christchurch Call, which advocates for greater control over online content.

"Ardern faces opposition at home, where the libertarian ACT party, which won 10 of 120 seats in the October 2020 election, makes free speech a major part of its platform and its opposition to the governing Labour Party. That was already a demanding job in a country that has an official national censorship office, and hasn't become easier in a pandemic-shocked world grown accustomed to 'emergency' incursions into individual rights.

"But Christchurch Call, co-founded by the governments of France and New Zealand, wins a friendly reception elsewhere. The European Union has long been on-board with speech controls and had no objection to endorsing the effort. Over 50 governments and most of the big tech companies have also signed on. 'YouTube is committed to the #ChristchurchCall,' CEO Susan Wojcicki tweeted May 14. 'We continue to strengthen our policies, improve transparency, and restrict borderline content. We look forward to continuing to work with the Call community.'

"Also endorsing the Christchurch Call is the government of the United States.... 'The United States endorses the Christchurch Call to Action to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online, formally joining those working together under the rubric of the Call to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting the Internet,' the U.S. State Department announced on May 7. The statement went on to promise that 'the United States will not take steps that would violate the freedoms of speech and association protected by the First Amendment,' but that's going to be hard to square with a mandate for 'ethical algorithms' intended to nudge people away from ideas frowned on by officialdom."

Read more: https://reason.com/2021/05/21/prince-harrys-first-amendment-aversion-is-funny-the-governments-that-agree-are-scary/

Canadian gov't moves to regulate online content

 'Full-blown assault' on free expression: Inside the comprehensive Liberal bill to regulate the internet |National Post - Tristin Hopper:

April 29, 2021 - "After more than 25 years of Canadian governments pursuing a hands-off approach to the online world, the government of Justin Trudeau is now pushing Bill C-10, a law that would see Canadians subjected to the most regulated internet in the free world. 

"Although pitched as a way to expand Canadian content provisions to the online sphere, the powers of Bill C-10 have expanded considerably in committee, including a provision introduced last week that could conceivably allow the federal government to order the deletion of any Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Twitter upload made by a Canadian. In comments this week, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh indicated his party was open to providing the votes needed to pass C-10, seeing the bill as a means to combat online hate....

"Former CRTC commissioner Peter Menzies said in an interview that Bill C-10 'doesn’t just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a full-blown assault upon it and, through it, the foundations of democracy'....

"The draft text of Bill C-10 specifically included a clause exempting social media. While the government was looking to regulate the internet, it didn’t want to bother with anything 'uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service.' Indeed, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault has repeatedly framed C-10 as a way to regulate streaming services such as Netflix and Crave while leaving social media alone.... 

"But in a House of Commons Heritage committee meeting Friday the social media clause was deleted.... What the deletion means is that every single Canadian who posts to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or YouTube could be treated like a broadcaster subject to CRTC oversight and sanction. The users themselves may not necessarily be subject to direct CRTC regulation, but social media providers would have to answer to every post on their platforms as if it were a TV show or radio program....

"When he introduced Bill C-10 in November, Guilbeault assured the House of Commons that 'user-generated content, news content and video games' would not be subject to the new regulations. Guilbeault’s 180-degree turn on social media ... [means that] if your Canadian website isn’t a text-only GeoCities blog from 1996, Bill C-10 thinks it’s a program deserving of CRTC regulation. This covers news sites, podcasts, blogs, the websites of political parties or activist groups and even foreign websites that might be seen in Canada. In a Monday meeting of the Canadian Heritage committee, smartphone apps were also thrown under the Bill C-10 rubric, although the complete text has not been released to the public.

"Passage of Bill C-10 would not subject Canadian content creators to a top-down China-style censorship regime.... But the ultimate effect of C-10 would be to plunge whole realms of independent media — from YouTubers to podcasters to bloggers — into an environment where they could face both a requirement for government registration as well as any number of CRTC content strictures drawn up without the need for additional legislation or oversight. As the bill’s official FAQ states, only after it becomes law will the CRTC decide 'how it should implement the new powers afforded by the Bill.'

"Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa professor and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, has been among one of the most persistent critics of Bill C-10, calling it 'dangerous,' and 'inexcusable.' In a February blog post, Geist noted that aside from C-10’s infringements on free expression, it could spark blowback.... Geist cites the experience of Facebook in Australia.... [After]  Australia passed legislation requiring the social media giant to compensate news companies whenever a link was shared on its platform ... Facebook simply banned the sharing of news content by Australian users, restoring it only after Australian legislation was amended.

"The penalties prescribed by Bill C-10 are substantial. For corporations, a first offence can yield penalties of up to $10 million, while subsequent offences could be up to $15 million apiece. If TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are suddenly put in a situation where their millions of users must follow the same rules as a Canadian cable channel or radio station, it’s not unreasonable to assume they may just follow Facebook’s example and take the nuclear option." 

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/full-blown-assault-on-free-expression-inside-the-comprehensive-liberal-bill-to-regulate-the-internet

'Cancel culture' moves into science

In defence of Karol Sikora | Spiked Online - Brendan O'Neill:

January 2, 2021 - "It isn’t only Covid-19 that is mutating. So is cancel culture. This nasty strain of censorship is spreading, intensifying, becoming ever-more poisonous and harmful to the body politic. The more coronavirus spreads, the more the virus of cancellation spreads too, with packs of censors and neo-Stalinists now demanding the silencing and punishment of anybody who deviates even slightly from the consensus on Covid-19. Just consider the current efforts to destroy the reputation of Karol Sikora.

"Professor Sikora is the cancer expert who has been questioning the Covid consensus for the past few months. He has queried the need for harsh lockdowns and kicked up a necessary fuss over the NHS’s suspension of various forms of medical treatment, including for cancer. In the fog of fear about Covid-19, Sikora has shone a light of hope. We’ll get through it, he says. Don’t live in dread, he counsels. Let normal life, and normal medical treatment, continue as much as possible, he’s advised. Has he always been right? Of course not. Show me the man who has. He suggested there wouldn’t be a second wave. In May he said that, come August, things will be ‘virtually back to normal’. That was wrong....

"For the supposed crime of not being entirely right about the course coronavirus would take, Professor Sikora is now public enemy No.1 in the eyes of the lockdown fanatics. Leading the mob, as is so often the case these days, is Guardian columnist Owen Jones. From the very start of the Covid crisis, Mr Jones, like many other privileged millennial leftists, has relished the authoritarianism of the lockdown. In March he expressed delight at being ‘placed under house arrest along with millions of people under a police state by a right-wing Tory government’. Yes, if you are well-off, middle class, capable of working from home and cancer-free, lockdown was probably a riot. For other people, however, it wasn’t. Professor Sikora’s chief sin was to express this truth – to say that lockdown will exact a wicked toll on many people – and now privileged beneficiaries of lockdown like Mr Jones are out to destroy him for it. 

"Jones’ complaint about Sikora is that he has been wrong about some things and he has criticised the policy of lockdown. ['What matters is that he dissents from the medical consensus on how the virus should be defeated'] He takes aim at Sikora’s proposal that instead of locking down the entire population, we should pursue shielding measures for certain sections of the population – ‘the old and vulnerable’. He mocks Sikora for being too chirpy. ‘The Positive Professor.’.... But most notably, letting slip his illiberal tendencies, Jones doesn’t merely criticise Sikora – that would be fine; everyone must have the right to criticise everybody else. No, he also suggests that Sikora should be denied the oxygen of publicity. The media outlets who give Sikora a platform should be ashamed of themselves, he says. They are ‘helping to spread disinformation’ and that is dangerous during a pandemic....

"Jones is not alone in the war on Sikora. The right-wing authoritarian Sam Bowman has branded Sikora and other sceptics, including Sunetra Gupta, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University who supports the Great Barrington Declaration, as ‘cranks’. Bowman, senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, detests these people’s suggestion that we should try to shield vulnerable people in the name of preserving liberty. He is far more keen on China’s approach to Covid, which, let’s not forget, involved literally locking people in their homes and silencing sceptical doctors.... Elsewhere, Sikora has been censured by YouTube and is regularly subjected to insults and accusations that he is killing people.

"We are now in full-on witch-hunt territory. Sikora, Gupta, Carl Heneghan, also of Oxford, and others are now routinely demonised....  The witch-hunters have helped to unleash hysterical abuse against sceptics. Gupta says she regularly receives emails calling her evil and dangerous. She has even wondered: ‘Would I have been treated like this if I were a white man?’ Of course, identitarians who normally stand up for women from ethnic minorities who are being trolled and harassed have nothing whatsoever to say about the war of words against Gupta, because to them she is scum. Well, she’s critical of the lockdown, so she must be, right?

"This is the chilling climate that the lockdown dogmatists have helped to create: one in which it is now tantamount to a speechcrime to raise a peep of criticism of the strategy of lockdown. Big Tech will censure you, mobs will hound you, neo-Stalinists will demand that you be added to a blacklist – for make no mistake, that is what the likes of Jones are essentially calling for when they suggest Sikora and others should not be ‘platformed’.... 

"We must defend freedom of speech in this crisis. Our lives are locked down – and many people accept that as a temporary measure – but our minds should never be locked down. Free thought and free speech are the great guards – our only guards, in fact – against the ossification of public debate and the creation of new, potentially damaging orthodoxies and policies. If we allow free thinking to die alongside the economy, millions of people’s jobs and those cancer patients who were neglected for months on end, then society will be the poorer for a very, very long time. So carry on, Positive Professor. Dissent is now the duty of every individual who wants to ensure that freedom is still breathing when this cursed lockdown is lifted."

Read more: https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/02/in-defence-of-karol-sikora/

Senate bill to enforce fairness doctrine on internet

Josh Hawley Introduces Bill to Put Washington In Charge of Internet Speech – Reason.com - Elizabeth Nolan Brown:

"Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) is introducing legislation to clamp down on free expression online, under the pretense of fighting tech-company 'bias' against Republicans. Hawley's solution is to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a measure that prevents individual users of internet platforms and the companies that run them from being treated as legally indistinguishable from one another. Without it, digital companies and the users of their products (i.e., all of us) could be sued in civil court or subject to state criminal prosecution over content and messages created and published by others....

"Now, national and state leaders are insisting that Section 230 must be destroyed in order to fight "foreign influence" in our elections, the manipulated videos known as "deepfakes," fentanyl trafficking, gun violence, and an array of other (sometimes real, sometimes imaginary) problems. "For some Republican leaders — chief among them Hawley—this has led to the truly Orwellian tack of trying to convince conservative internet users that taking away protection for online speech will somehow allow them to speak more freely.

"That's the nonsensical proposition at the heart of Hawley's new legislation, misleadingly called the 'Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act.' The measure would give the government control over online speech by denying Section 230 protections to platforms that don't hand over an array of private intellectual property and satisfactorily prove to a bunch of partisan political appointees that they are operating in a 'politically neutral' manner. Essentially, Hawley wants to revive the old Fairness Doctrine—a policy that was roundly denounced by conservatives for its chilling effect on free speech and its propensity to further marginalize non-mainstream voices—and apply this cursed policy paradigm to anything online.

"Under Hawley's bill, companies would be required to reapply with the Federal Trade Commission every two years for this political favor—a situation that would mean companies having "to constantly curry favor with the administration," as Mapbox policy head Tom Lee noted on Twitter. Hawley's proposal would also require tech companies to discipline or fire any employee who made a content moderation decision that bureaucrats deem to be in violation of online-speech neutrality principles....

"Censorship would be universally worse without Section 230 and, as someone who studied law, Hawley should know this. But it doesn't matter what he knows about Section 230, it matters what the masses know about Section 230—which was basically zilch, until recently. That's what makes it easy for folks like Hawley ... and the rest of the bipartisan chorus calling for 230's demise to manipulate their base into buying that it's about 'bias' or or any other number of hated things.

"But no matter how many culture war red flags Hawley and company raise, their solutions all come down to the same thing: letting folks in Washington have more say over what can be said on the internet."

Read more: https://reason.com/2019/06/19/josh-hawley-introduces-bill-to-put-washington-in-charge-of-internet-speech/
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FL couple wins fight to paint house like Van Gogh

Couple Wins Fight to Keep Their House Painted Like Van Gogh's Starry Night to Soothe Autistic Son - Foundation for Economic Education - David Gornoski:

August 27, 2018 - "Mt. Dora, Florida, ... is an artsy little hamlet known for its murals and art festivals. A year ago, Nancy [Nemhauser] and her husband Lubomir decided to paint their house wall in an interpretation of Vincent van Gogh's famous Starry Night painting. They had no homeowners association, they checked with city code and no issue was raised. Yet after they painted it, they received a city citation claiming the wall art was graffiti — that the wall had to match the color of the house. So the couple decided to paint the whole house to match to avoid any issue.

"This gesture ... was not received well by the city magistrates. They began to issue rolling hundred dollar fines for every day the Nemhausers failed to comply with their demands.

"Nancy and Lubomir commissioned the mural as a gift to their son, who has autism. They found that the Starry Night painting was a particular source of comfort and fascination for the young man. Also, in instances in which he might get lost from home, his difficulty in communication could be overcome by saying 'the Van Gogh house' to a person looking to help.

"If I do not like the color scheme of my neighbor's house, do I have a right to come to their door and demand that they pay me a hundred dollars a day until they fix it? If they resist long enough, can I bring men with guns to force them out of their home? Such behavior sounds insane. Because it is.

"However, when we form groups, we start to think we can get away with doing really insane or cruel things. Toxic groupthink can be playground bullies mimicking a child's unique speech pattern. It can also produce groupthink in governments that maintain the right to do things they would find abhorrent to do individually — just because a majority of voters in a space hired them.

"Nancy and Lubomir ... violated no law. They were merely victims of an arbitrarily banal exertion of power by busybodies who presume control. However, whether such a code existed or not on paper, the principle at stake here is one that arrests the very nature of what our culture should be.

"Should we ever use the threat of theft — an act of violence — to change a person's nonviolent behavior or choices? Should we have a culture that produces laws to coerce people's expression, personal choices, property use, or means of caring for their children? If there is no flesh and blood victim that can be named in a citation or police report about an event, how could we ever accuse a person of a crime or violation?

"As long as human beings are not stealing, defrauding, or initiating violence, they should enjoy their lives free from meddling.... Private contracts are mutually agreed upon covenants that can be enforced if people violate the terms. However, public contracts — the domain of states — are often arbitrarily decided piecemeal based on the ever-changing whims of the people close to power.... It is our job as role models for future generations to never let the law be used in such a farcical way.

"Thanks to their courage and the Pacific Legal Foundation, Nancy and Lubomir were victorious. Facing a federal battle over constitutional rights and an onslaught of media attention, Mt. Dora reached a settlement. As part of the agreement, the mayor publicly apologized in a press conference.

"Nancy told me the ordeal cost them greatly in health, stress, and many sleepless nights. For painting their house to help their son."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/couple-wins-fight-to-keep-their-house-painted-like-van-goghs-starry-night-to-soothe-autistic-son/
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