British Columbia is urging the federal government to resurrect a controversial law to regulate social media companies for the harms they cause, saying the country needs a national approach to the issue.
Attorney General Niki Sharma has spoken to her federal counterpart Sean Fraser about salvaging parts of Bill C-63, which died earlier this year when the federal government prorogued Parliament to call an election.
“There's always criticisms on either side of the way to move about this area of legislation, but I think there were really promising things that were in that online harms bill that would set a national standard and some oversight on that standard,” Sharma said in an interview.
“So those are the things that you know I'm looking forward to seeing.”
The federal legislation would have required media platforms to detect and remove harmful content—like hate speech, child bullying, self-harm, the sexualization of children and non-consensual sexual images—or face stiff fines. It also proposed to create a Digital Safety Commission of Canada for enforcement, stiffen Criminal Code offences and allow for complaints under the human rights act.
“There were some really key things that I think are very important when it comes to social media platforms, and that was a setting of a standard like under the Act they had their duty to act responsibly, a duty to protect children,” said Sharma.
“If you're a social media company and designing a tool that kids will have access to, that you have a duty of conduct.”
British Columbia has taken an aggressive position in holding tech companies to account for online behaviour since David Eby became premier.
The province threatened to pass legislation to sue social media companies for the mental health and addictions harms caused by their algorithms, saying unaccountable billionaires and international tech giants must be held responsible for the impact of content shared on their platforms. It settled for a roundtable with major players and incremental improvements.
Sharma also passed a law to crack down on sharing non-consensual images, which fast-tracks court orders to remove content within an average of 30 days.
But the province has run up against the limits of its power as a small player in a global environment. Sharma said Ottawa would be a more effective leader on the issue.
“There's a couple of reasons why I think it's important for the federal level to do some of that work,” she said.
“They have more tools when it comes to regulating things like telecommunications than we do in our jurisdiction. So having a nationwide system of that would always be preferred, I think.
“I spoke to Minister Fraser about this, and it sounds like they're particularly interested in taking action when it comes to children and child safety online. So I suspect it'll be a continuation of some of the work that died in that bill related to that. And I told them that we're very interested in following that.”
It’s not clear if Prime Minister Mark Carney intends to resurrect Bill C-63. It also attracted intense criticism from some civil liberties and legal groups that warned it could chill free speech, and in particular was dangerous for its so-called “pre-crime” provision that would allow a judge to impose restrictions against someone based on a reasonable fear they might commit a hate crime.
The federal parliamentary budget office also warned the new online digital commission office would require more than 300 staff and a budget of more than $200 million over five years to be effective.
“It was a preliminary conversation,” said Sharma.
“I think it's better with some of this stuff nationally, but if we need to step in as a province, and the jurisdiction that we have, then we'll do that.”
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering 小蓝视频 politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for The Orca/BIV. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on C小蓝视频 Radio.
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