A Disaster For Free Expression and Privacy

The Canadian government is currently working on a censorship scheme that would give enormous powers to law enforcement and the country’s intelligence agency to track communications on social media in an effort to combat hate, violence, and extremism online. Anyone who says that censorship can effectively solve anything is either completely delusional or lying to you.

Just like abstinence-only sex education lead to greater teen pregnancy rates and not less, and just like alcohol prohibition only pushed the booze trade underground, fuelling organized crime, the federal government’s plan will not solve the growing problem of hate and extremism. What this will do is open the door to the suppression of any voice, worthy or not, that goes against the government’s directive, while truly bad actors will continue finding channels to spread their message.

To write this warning off as hyperbole is ignoring history and what is happening around the world today. There are myriad past and current examples of countries spying on and oppressing political opponents, journalists, and activists, such as with the ongoing Pegasus scandal. This censorship plan truly presents a concerning slippery slope to the further oppression of dissenting voices, which will only lead to more divisions in our society.

This isn’t to downplay actual hate speech, because it certainly is a worsening problem. But the ability to freely express that speech is not what is causing these extreme views in the first place. I’ve talked a lot about it here and the way our society is so hyper-focused on profit growth, such as what comes from promoted clicks and views on social media, is leading people to these hive-minds that can end up perpetuating hate and extremism. And the reason people are so easily led there is because of the human need for community and meaning, which has been made harder to find in our profit-based society. It is a self-perpetuating feedback loop that will not be solved by more authoritarianism. It can only be solved by more democracy.

So in order to protect democracy, we must protect all free expression—even if those views might not seem worthy to you and I, and instead tackle the root causes of the inequalities that are leading to these divisions in our society. Whether it’s fighting for workers’ rights, or fighting against clear cutting of old growth forests, or calling for the end of police brutality against black, Indigenous and people of colour, these are all important causes that could be labelled as extremist by a motivated government.

So, if you agree with me and want to protect your rights, click here to use Open Media’s handy form to quickly send a message to the government to show your opposition to their plan. At the least, keep this in mind and talk about it with your friends and family. Remember, if we don’t deal with politics, politics will deal with us.