Richard Warman used to take neo-nazis he found online to the human rights commission. He used an obscure provision called Section 13, which was repealed in 2014. 

But it may be coming back.

The long-awaited Online Harms Act includes a section allowing human rights complaints over online hate speech. Free speech advocates are worried, but some say it’s time trolls start behaving. 

Who gets to decide what’s hate speech? Is this the end of online hate or the start of something more sinister? To find out, Mattea Roach asked Emily Laidlaw, a Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law and an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary, and Richard Moon, a law professor at the University of Windsor. 

Correction (March 18, 2024): This episode’s description originally stated that the proposed Online Harms Act would permit “users to sue each other for hate speech online.” In fact, it would allow the Canadian Human Rights Commission to consider complaints related to allegedly discriminatory online speech and to refer such complaints to the quasi-judicial Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Host: Mattea Roach

Credits: Aviva Lessard (Producer), Sam Konnert (Producer), Caleb Thompson (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), André Proulx (Production Coordinator) Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)

Guests: Richard Moon, Emily Laidlaw

Background reading:

• The government doubles down on censoring the internet - The Hub
• Online harms bill could spark 'an absolute tsunami of complaints' - National Post
• Carson Jerema: Don't believe the Liberals, online harms act targets free speech - National Post
• The history of Section 13, the controversial hate speech law the Liberals just revived - National Post
• Poilievre says online harms should be punished with jail, 'not pushed off to new bureaucracy' - National Post
• #198 Punching Nazis... With The Law! - Canadaland

Sponsors: Douglas, AG1

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