A Toronto tech expert says the federal government’s new online harms bill should be effective but digital literacy for children needs to be addressed.
On Monday, the Liberal government is set to introduce an online harms bill designed to protect children using the internet.
The bill is expected to address issues such as online child endangerment, and non-consensual sharing of sexual images and hate speech, among others.
During the 2021 election campaign, the Liberal government pledged to introduce legislation to combat harmful online content within the first 100 days of leadership.
It promised to protect against online hate speech, terrorist content, material that incites violence, child sexual abuse and the non-consentual distribution of intimate images.
The pledge also outlined plans to hold social media sites and other online services accountable for the content displayed on their platforms, as well as updates to the Canada Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code related to online hate.
The Liberals failed to meet their 100 day deadline, but in the years since there has been much debate and discussion around the topic, and growing sentiment among experts that new legislation is necessary.
An open letter to the federal government, penned and signed in December 2022 by members of the Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety to the Government of Canada, as well as numerous other experts in the field, urged it to follow through on its initial promises.
“The government has now engaged on this issue for the past two years, and has conducted a wide range of consultations on how best to address the harms Canadians face online, including hearing from two national commissions, four citizens assemblies, roundtables across the country, and a panel of experts from law, public policy, and public health,” the letter said.
It also suggested that online harms protection laws should be built upon specific pillars, including a platform’s duty to protect its users with emphasis on children, the creation of a third party regulator with investigative powers and authority to issue fines, transparency by platforms on data sharing and collection with an avenue for audit, and a dedicated victim support infrastructure for those impacted by online hate.
In an interview with Now Toronto, Francis Syms, associate dean of information and communications technology at Humber College, elaborated on the components laid out in the letter and on what is expected to be tabled today.
Syms highlighted that regulations similar to the ones expected to be proposed by the Liberals, have already been implemented in the EU and U.K. where internet providers are responsible for monitoring the IP addresses of people that use their services.
“If [they] see content that’s child pornography related or content like this, [they] have an obligation to report it to law enforcement immediately, and an obligation to maintain records of that for a period of time…it doesn’t actually happen like that in Canada,” Syms said.
However, it does apply in cases of copyright infringement, which includes illegally downloading films, for example.
The bill also seeks to curb the sharing of intimate content without consent, an occurrence that is becoming increasingly common, particularly in schools.
“We hear about this on the news all the time. Somebody’s taken a video of some intimate relationship and then shares it with their friends or with somebody else,” Syms said, but new legislation would protect against this.
Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre doubled down on certain statues in the bill’s early days. According to Syms, primary legislation said the provider would have to take hate-motivated speech content down within a certain time frame, but Poilievre took exception to that.
“He’s saying who gets to decide what’s considered hate messaging or inciting violence, and then if something is taken down quickly, is that violating some sort of freedom of information or expression,” Syms explained.
However, Syms said a third party regulatory body would likely be formed to oversee the implementation of rules and regulations in order to mitigate the risk of freedom of speech infringements, while ensuring the protection of children.
Material that encourages violence and terrorism is also expected to be addressed in the bill.
“The content that’s most egregious or shocking or surprising is often the content that people are drawn towards, and then once they start going down that rabbit hole, it gets reinforced,” Syms told Now Toronto.
Protecting children from this brand of content, particularly in the age of AI, will likely lead to the introduction of authenticity marks, according to Syms, which will make it possible to decipher the origins of information and distinguish fact from fiction.
Syms also emphasized the importance of teaching digital literacy.
“That’s a whole part we’re missing right now,” he said.
“It’s not just about how you use a computer, but it’s how you interact with things online. I think teaching children to use tools like AI, video generators or audio generators is important because they need to understand what they’re looking at, I think if you teach them the tools, and there’s protections in place to make sure that they’re using it ethically and responsibly, that allows them to better understand and recognize misinformation out there,” Syms concluded.
The Liberal government is expected to announce details of the bill this evening.
