Liberal platform promises new legislation to combat "harmful online content"
The Liberal Party of Canada is promising to introduce new legislation to combat "serious forms of harmful online content” in their new platform, released this morning.
Here's what the Liberals promise on page 65 of their platform:
Introduce legislation within its first 100 days to combat serious forms of harmful online content, specifically hate speech, terrorist content, content that incites violence, child sexual abuse material and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. This would make sure that social media platforms and other online services are held accountable for the content that they host. Our legislation will recognize the importance of freedom of expression for all Canadians and will take a balanced and targeted approach to tackle extreme and harmful speech.
The party's new platform also promises to "strengthen the Canada Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to more effectively combat online hate."
This comes after the Liberals already introduced two separate bills relating to regulation of online content and hate speech, Bill C-10 and Bill C-36, both of which failed to pass as law before parliament was dissolved in August.