CANADA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s C-11 bill, titled “An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts” is found to be an authoritarian law that will tell Canadians what they can or cannot watch on the internet.
Bill C-11 regulates user content and hides those it does not like on YouTube, Rumble and other media platforms. Moreover, it forces streaming services to serve up content that the government likes while it shadow-bans services that it doesn’t. This means that every service will now be like the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC).
Trudeau’s bill was presented as a way to protect content creators, but it is pretty obvious that the prime minister is actually silencing speech.
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, the government’s point person on C-11, claimed that the legislation will “help make sure that our cultural sector works for Canadians and supports the next generation of artists and creators.”
Winnipeg Free Press said Trudeau does not care about Canadian content creators. It warned that the bill invades Canadian’s privacy and lessens their compatibility to hold the government accountable by influencing what they can see or say online.
Moreover, the rationale behind the bill had already been “thoroughly debunked.”
C-11 force-feeds domestic viewers content from YouTube and TikTok, which they may have no interest in and lower click rates. This could prompt these platforms to deprioritize Canadian content beyond Canada. Foreigners enjoy more than 80 percent of Canadian content on platforms like YouTube.
While content may fare better in Canada, it might fail around the world, the Free Press reported.
Creators and companies alike oppose Bill C-11
Meanwhile, the Toronto Sun noted that Canadians from all walks of life are calling on the Senate to junk the bill. Canadian content creators also urged senators to reject the bill in its current form as they see it as a very dangerous piece of legislation.
Digital First Canada, which represents tens of thousands of small-time Canadian content creators, sent a letter to every senator, warning Bill C-11 could kill the careers of the very artists the Trudeau government claims it wants to help.
“Right now, our livelihoods are at risk,” the group said in the letter, noting that the government rammed Bill C-11 through the House of Commons without any room for debate or amendments. “Earlier this year, over 40,000 creators and users raised our voices in the House and through letters to defend our digital businesses against these changes. We were ignored.”
Major companies like Google and YouTube were also against Bill C-11, warning that Canadian consumers will be force-fed with government-approved content.
Google, which partners with Open Media, noted that Canadians’ favorite content “could be systematically downranked in favor of content that the CRTC [Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission] deems ‘Canadian enough.’”
YouTube issued a similar statement, saying that if Bill C-11 is put into practice, viewers will be served content that a Canadian government regulator has prioritized, rather than something that they may be interested in.
Other groups claiming to represent creators, like the Canadian Independent Music Association, have come out in favor of the legislation. But they need to think through the implications of the new bill.
If government bureaucrats get to choose what content they can show to Canadians, there is also a genuine risk that the government will use its filtering powers to silence critics.
Watch the video below to learn more about government censorship and moderation policies.
by: Mary Villareal
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