No One Asked Me If I Wanted Censorship

And I don't:

Two cultural industry groups pushed the Liberal government to remove the exemption for user-generated content from the first version of its online streaming bill — which ignited a wave of controversy when the government followed through last year.

“Stakeholders and parliamentarians have expressed concerns with social media exclusions in the Bill and have made proposals to ensure their regulation, at least in part,” government documents obtained through Access to Information outline.

They detail suggested amendments to what was then Bill C-10, the government’s attempt to update the Broadcasting Act in order to set up the CRTC to regulate digital platforms like Netflix the way it does traditional broadcasters. The Liberals have now reintroduced it as Bill C-11, after C-10 died on the order paper when the 2021 election was called.

The first version of the bill included three exemptions for social media. Section 2.1 excluded users themselves, while section 4.1 excluded the programs uploaded by users. Section 4.1 also excluded social media services whose broadcasting consists only of user-generated programs.

“These exclusions were added to the Bill to ensure that broadcasting regulation did not infringe on freedom of expression and to ensure it would not unduly affect creators (especially small amateur creators),” the documents state.

But after the Liberal government removed section 4.1 from the bill in the spring of 2021, it insisted that section 2.1, exempting creators themselves, was sufficient to ensure freedom of expression. Critics insisted it was not — arguing that even if under the new version the CRTC couldn’t, for example, compel creators to appear at a hearing, removing section 4.1 still placed the posts and content created by Canadians under the CRTC’s regulatory authority. The controversy bogged down the passage of the bill, which eventually made it through the House of Commons but died in the Senate after senators refused to fast-track it.

The government documents indicate why the Liberals may have chosen to remove the exemptions. They cite the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (known as CDEC in French), a group representing Canada’s cultural sector, including television, film and music.

“Notably, the CDEC and its members have proposed that all exclusions be removed and that the CRTC be enabled to determine what should or should not be regulated on social media,” the document says.

It also cites advocacy group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (now renamed to Friends), which “proposed that the users of social media services be excluded from regulation, but that the platforms themselves be regulated, allowing for conditions on advertising standards, discoverability and data gathering.”

 

Ego, censorship.