At least, on a reasonable person’s reading of the proposed law, it doesn’t criminalize hyperlinks to material that “incites hatred”:
The source of the latest round of concern stems from the Library of Parliament’s Parliamentary Information and Research Service legislative summary of Bill C-51. On the issue of hyperlinking, it states:
Clause 5 of the bill provides that the offences of public incitement of hatred and wilful promotion of hatred may be committed by any means of communication and include making hate material available, by creating a hyperlink that directs web surfers to a website where hate material is posted, for example.
I must admit that I think is wrong. The actual legislative change amends the definition of communicating from this:
“communicating” includes communicating by telephone, broadcasting or other audible or visible means;
to this:
“communicating” means communicating by any means and includes making available;
The revised definition is obviously designed to broaden the scope of the public incitement of hatred provision by making it technology neutral. Whereas the current provision is potentially limited to certain technologies, the new provision would cover any form of communication. It does not specifically reference hyperlinking.
Michael is much more informed about this issue than I am, so I find his confidence as a welcome balm to all the concern raised about this issue. The bill itself, of course, remains a civil liberty disaster in other ways, even with this issue addressed:
As I have argued for a long time, there are many reasons to be concerned with lawful access. The government has never provided adequate evidence on the need for it, it has never been subject to committee review, it would mandate disclosure of some personal information without court oversight, it would establish a massive ISP regulatory process (including employee background checks), it would install broad new surveillance technologies, and it would cost millions (without a sense of who actually pays). Given these problems, it is not surprising to find that every privacy commissioner in Canada has signed a joint letter expressing their concerns.
