The poll was commissioned by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, a Crown corporation, and conducted by Abacus Data, an Ottawa-based public opinion research firm that surveyed 2,000 randomly selected Canadian residents from January 15 to 18.
By a two-to-one margin, respondents were more worried about online hate speech than they were about restrictions on freedom of speech and privacy protection.
Respondents were asked: “When it comes to regulating hate speech online, which of the following comes closest to your view?” They were given two options.
“I worry more about the impact of hate speech and racism on people it harms and the impact on society overall than on limits to people’s freedom of speech or protecting privacy,” was selected by 69 per cent of respondents.
Thirty-one percent of respondents selected: “I worry more about governments and social media companies being able to limit the rights of citizens to express themselves and protecting the privacy of users than the impact of hateful or racist behaviour online.”
The view was widely supported across demographics, according to the Abacus data, including all age groups and genders. The largest split on the sentiment was along ideological lines.
Of those describing their politics as being on the left, 81 per cent said they were more worried about hate speech and racism than limiting freedom of speech; 70 per cent of those describing their views as in the centre chose the same option, as did 50 per cent of those describing their politics as being on the right.
Further, 60 per cent of all respondents said the Canadian government should be doing more to prevent the spread of hateful and racist content online; 17 per cent rejected that idea and 23 per cent said they weren’t sure.
The idea of government intervention was rejected by eight per cent of the left, 15 per cent of the centre, and 38 per cent of the right.
Overall, almost all respondents believed online hateful and racist content is a problem in Canada: 49 per cent described it as a big problem, 44 per cent as a minor problem, and seven per cent as not a problem.
To wit:
A handful of people in one area of a major metropolitan area where the politics are largely leftist chose one out of two selectively worded comments that just happened to concur with the government's efforts to stifle all speech.
This might clarify things:
The claim of the story is an outright falsehood, the Can Race Relations Foundation should alert people to the fine print:
" A random sample of panelists was invited to complete the survey from a set of partner panels based on the Lucid exchange platform. These partners are typically double opt-in survey panels, blended to manage out potential skews in the data from a single source. The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 2.2%,"
Simply said it is not a random sample at all, but a finding from self-selected panelists.
So, a panel of people determined for everyone else that speech is best confined, restricted or otherwise blotted from existence.
Consider the millions of things that can be construed as offensive, whether such an offense is meant or not. Consider how people are actively taught to take offense.
If the government had its way, we would be blinded, made mute and hobbled to such an extent that we could still be used as pack-horses but never make a sound about it.
(Merci)
No comments:
Post a Comment