Canada’s got the world’s worst internet ideas

The Canada Variant is the most virulent “online harms” rule yet.

Canada’s government is poised to pass a “harmful content” regulation. It’s a worst-in-class mutation of a dangerous idea that’s swept the globe, in which governments demand that hamfisted tech giants remove broad categories of speech — too swiftly for meaningful analysis.

Many countries have proposed or passed rules on these lines: Australia, France, UK, Germany, India. They are all bad, but Canada’s is literally the worst — as if Trudeau’s Liberals sought out the most dangerous elements of each rule and combined them.

https://twitter.com/daphnehk/status/1421120217585831938

What’s in Canada’s rule? EFF’s Corynne McSherry and Katitza Rodriguez break it down.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/o-no-canada-fast-moving-proposal-creates-filtering-blocking-and-reporting-rules-1

• A requirement to remove “lawful-but-awful” speech that is allowed under Canadian law, but effectively also now banned under Canadian law;
• 24-hour deadlines for removal, guaranteeing that platforms will not have time to conduct a thorough analysis of speech before it is censored;
• A de-facto requirement for…