Canada’s forthcoming Online Harms bill could come with a dedicated “ombudsperson” likely to help flood the zone with disinformation.
When Bill C-11 was pushed, the government and the mainstream media pushed wall to wall disinformation about how this legislation was about “making platforms pay their fair share”. It was a massive propaganda campaign aimed at selling a bill destined to completely carpet bomb small independent creators chances of making it, sacrificing it on the alter of traditional media companies respective bottom lines as they demand that all algorithms point to the traditional media content instead of the users choice. The propaganda was, at times, relentless as I had to repeatedly set the record straight on the legislation. Things got so bad that lawmakers were demanding “investigations” into anyone daring to criticize the legislation.
Then, there was the then called Bill C-18 where the media doubled down on the disinformation campaign. This time, the disinformation flooding the zone was even more coordinated between the government and the media. There was the push for Big Lie 1.0 where the media lied about how the platforms are “stealing” their content. When the platforms said that they would rather drop the inconsequential news links, the media and the government followed their campaign with Big Lie 2.0 which says that the platforms are “censoring” the media.
The media took things up a notch when they began spiking editorials criticizing the legislation – even when those editorials are generally supportive of the bill in question.
If that weren’t enough, the media then coordinated with the government to boycott Meta by suspending advertising dollars. That first boycott was dead on arrival when the governing Liberal party refused to participate and other players were unable to make a financial dent on the platform. In response, the media launched a second boycott, asking Canadians to stop using Meta platforms. The boycott ended in abysmal failure when few even bothered to support the boycott. The mainstream media then doubled down and launched a third user boycott. The boycott ended in failure when almost no one showed up.
Any sense of impartiality by the media had been taken out to the woodshed as they were actively launching coordinated messaging campaigns to suit their business interests. This without much of a thought on the actual role of journalists in the first place. This is with very rare exceptions where the other side of the story was rarely entertained – if at all. This despite the incredible track record of critics being proven right countless times in these debates.
Of course, these problems aren’t exclusive to one side of the political aisle. On the other side, there is Bill S-210, Canada’s censorship bill. It is one of those ill-conceived “protect the children” bills that is very likely unconstitutional. Once again, the media and the government launched a coordinated campaign to sell the dangerous legislation. This includes arguments that the legislation only goes after adult websites (it does not), that the bill protects against child luring (it does not), and that the Liberals are out of step with the rest of the world for opposing this particular bill (they are not).
Again, any semblance of impartiality has been thrown out the window, leaving small dedicated websites like us to fill the void left behind by the media outlets. We had to discern between fact and fiction and, sadly, a huge amount of disinformation came from the large media outlets themselves with a sizable helping of it coming from the government.
Of course, as some of you know, there’s another government bill that is still coming down the pipeline. As per the original consultation by notice, the legislation is the most dangerous of the governments three internet crackdown bills. In short, it threatens to shut down domestic websites like ours while ordering ISP’s to block any international websites that don’t comply with Canada’s silly bill among other things. Naturally, I responded to the consultation, pointing out what a colossal nightmare this bill would be. Respondents from a wide range of other backgrounds also weighed in and agreed with our assessment on the situation.
Now, I want you to take a moment and look back on all that has happened up to this point and just take in the craziness that has unfolded in the last few years. A common thing you’ll likely note is the fact that the government flat out refused to hear expert opinion on the various matters, pushed through their bills, and the consequences that were warned about happened anyway despite the warnings. Lawmakers pushing these insane bills have a long and storied reputation of refusing to listen to anyone but those who give full throated support for the bills with disastrous consequences. That is a major theme throughout these debates.
Now take in how the government responded to this clusterfuck of a situation. Reports are surfacing that the Canadian government is actively considering an ombudsperson to handle the freaking messaging the government wants to push. Yes, the government has decided that the problem with their disastrous policy decisions was that it was all just a messaging problem. From the Globe and Mail:
The federal government’s evolving plan to help protect Canadians from harm online could include a new ombudsperson to field public concerns and a regulator that would oversee the conduct of internet platforms.
The new positions would be established as a part of the forthcoming online-harms legislation, which the government is currently hoping to announce by April, said one senior official with knowledge of the plan.
What the actual fuck? Is there seriously the possibility that there will be a dedicated person out there to justify why Freezenet exists? When I started Freezenet, sitting around all day debunking government propaganda and lies was not what I had in mind. What’s more, does the government seriously think that the problem they had all this time in pushing their bills was a messaging problem? Seriously, government, you aren’t going to talk your way out of reality. This is only going to end in even more disaster.
What’s worse, there is the messaging that we could be in for a fight for our lives soon:
“It’s very nearly ready to go,” said the source, who has seen a draft of the legislation. The source spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss details that have yet to be made public.
Yeah, that’s just freaking great. I didn’t need the stress of this, but if the bill is soon tabled, I will be in for a world of stress. The Globe then wasted no time in proceeding to push disinformation on the legislation:
Online safety and technology experts have for months been pressuring the governing Liberals to present their long-promised legislation aimed at protecting Canadians, and in particular minors, from online harms.
Canadian children are currently less protected than kids living in the United Kingdom, the European Union and Australia, where such laws currently exist, they warn.
Everything about these two paragraphs are purely fabricated. Experts have been long warning about the dangers of the online harms legislation. When the consultation for this legislation was launched, the condemnation for the governments approach was nearly universal. Experts have been long fearing this legislation and have been fearing that the day will come when the bill is tabled.
What’s more, there is absolutely no basis to say that kids living in the UK, EU, and Australia are somehow more safer. In fact, there’s well founded arguments to say that the children are much less safe in those countries.
In Australia, for instance, they passed their anti-encryption laws, meaning that the communications of children have become far less secure as a result. Things got so bad in Australia that even journalists were targeted by the government through the anti-encryption bill.
For the UK, the Online Safety Bill has been long condemned by digital rights advocates for undermining public safety in their country.
Finally, in the EU, laws targeting encryption has long been criticized for making everyone less safe.
So, the Globe’s comments here are completely backwards as far as I can tell.
Ultimately, the Canadian government seems to be doubling down on the concept of flooding the zone with disinformation. It wasn’t enough that lawmakers are using their public presence to push the legislation. It wasn’t even enough for the media to launch coordinated disinformation campaigns to help push the legislation. Now, there is the possibility that the government could appoint someone to help coordinate these efforts. Someone, or a group of people will be well paid to lie to the public and people like me, who work for free, will have to fact check and debunk any myths coming from this ombudsperson. Can’t say I am happy about the situation, but it hasn’t stopped me before.
(Via @MGeist)
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
