A Canadian law that aims to make social media platforms safer is getting flak for what some decry as government overreach.
Introduced late last month, the Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63, would allow judges to imprison adults for life if they advocate for genocide.
The law would also allow a provincial judge to impose house arrest and a fine if there were reasonable grounds to believe a defendant “will commit” an offense – a provision Wall Street Journal columnist Michael Taube likened to the 2002 film “Minority Report.”
Maragaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” has criticized the bill as “Orwellian.”
“If this account of the bill is true, it’s Lettres de Cachet all over again. The possibilities for revenge false accusations + thoughtcrime stuff are sooo inviting! Trudeau’s Orwellian online harms bill,” Atwood wrote on Twitter.
If this account of the bill is true, it’s Lettres de Cachet all over again. The possibilities for revenge false accusations + thoughtcrime stuff are sooo inviting! Trudeau’s Orwellian online harms bill https://t.co/GziivgfNGt
— Margaret E Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) March 9, 2024
Writing in Public, conservative author Stephen Moore called it the “most shocking of all the totalitarian, illiberal, and anti-Enlightenment pieces of legislation that have been introduced in the Western world in decades.”
Citing a government spokesperson, the bill would increase the maximum penalty specifically for advocating genocide from five years to life imprisonment and from two years to five years, on indictment, for the willful promotion of hatred.
Justice Minister Arif Virani, who introduced the bill, said, as a father, he was “terrified of the dangers that lurk on the internet for our children.”
He argued that laws exist regulating the safety of toys his kids play with, but not the “screen that is in our children’s faces.”
“Hatred” is completely left to interpretation so of course they will use that just when it suits them.
For example, you will be arrested and jailed if you tell a Muslim that they don’t deserve to live in Canada because of their hateful religion, but it was perfectly fine for Trudeau to say the the same thing to an elderly old stock Quebec lady because she had asked him a question he did not like.
Now he wants to jail people for crimes “They may commit’……. “house arrest and a fine if there were reasonable grounds to believe a defendant “will commit” an offense ” too far over the top, an easy way to jail people they dont want around….
punished for crimes “they may commit” , WOW thats going too far
People of Canada, Rise Up! This no good son of a bitch needs to be thrown out. Once Communism gets a toe hold, it will spread like an agressive malignant cancer.