Writing for Academic Discussion Should there be stricter regulations reagarding freedom of speech on the internet? - revised -

The internet has become a vital platform for free expression, but it has also been a medium where harmful speech can flourish, including hate speech, misinformation, an cyberbullying. Considering these issues, should there be stricter regulations regarding freedom of speech on the internet?

 

 

☆Let’s Read

Read the following excerpt from The New York Times and take notes of related cases that came up to your mind as you read.

 

Canada Wants to Regulate Online Content. Critics Say It Goes Too Far.

A bill introduced by the Canadian government to safeguard against online harms has stirred opposition from free speech advocates.  By Vijosa Isai   April 9, 2024

 

… The comprehensive bill calls for civil and criminal penalties on hate speech, a move that has provoked the strongest opposition.

One provision would, for the first time in Canada, establish hate as a separate crime that would encompass both written and physical acts. Currently, depending on the circumstances, hate can be added as an element to other criminal offenses but cannot be charged as a separate crime. The government argues that making it a separate crime would make it easier to track offenses.

Another measure would allow people to seek the equivalent of a protection order against someone they accuse of targeting them with hate.

The bill would also restore a regulation repealed by Parliament about a decade ago allowing Canadians to file complaints to an existing human rights commission that can ultimately lead to financial penalties of up to 50,000 Canadian dollars against people judged to have committed hate speech.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association criticized the bill, saying it would lead to “overbroad violations of expressive freedom, privacy, protest rights and liberty,” and would give a new regulatory agency the power to be “judge, jury and executioner.”

The government seems to want to “create a much more sanitized internet and that’s very harmful for free speech because it’s the controversial stuff we need to be able to talk about,’’ said Josh Dehaas, counsel at the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes civil liberties.

Mr. Virani, the justice minister, rejected any suggestion that the government was trying to limit free speech, saying the bill seeks to protect people from hatred.

“Free speech in this country doesn’t include hate speech,” he said.

Some experts and tech companies praised the bill, saying that the stiffest penalties were reserved for the worst forms of content and would not trample on free speech.

“It’s an incredibly thoughtful piece of legislation, if you’re looking at balancing protection from harm and protection of fundamental rights,” said Emily Laidlaw, a professor who focuses on cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary.

As the bill is in the early stages of the legislative process and criticism has been robust, changes are likely to come before a final vote. Government officials said they expected that amendments would need to be negotiated.

The leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, has questioned the need for more bureaucracy, saying online crimes could be dealt with through expanded criminal enforcement.

But some supporters of the bill say it would provide a faster way to tackle crimes on the internet since tech platforms could be ordered to remove content within a day.

Some supporters say the bill provides regular online users a way to rein in content that can sometimes have tragic consequences.

…

Carol Todd, who lives in British Columbia, knows from painful personal experience what it means to confront sexual images of children online.

Her daughter was 15 when she died by suicide after a Dutch man, using some two dozen fake accounts, shared sexual images of her online and demanded money. He was eventually arrested and convicted in 2022 for sexual extortion, and is imprisoned in the Netherlands.

Ms. Todd said it was hard enough finding a place on Facebook to report the images of her daughter. “It was just so much work and it defeated my kid,” she said. (The posts were eventually removed, Ms. Todd said, though Facebook never commented on the case.)

Lianna McDonald, the director of the Canadian Center for Child Protection, said the government’s proposed online regulations could prevent other tragic outcomes.

“We’ve lost too many children,” she said, “and too many families have been devastated by the violence that occurs online.”

Both Canada and the United States have a three-digit suicide and crisis hotline: 988. If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 and visit 988.ca (Canada) or 988lifeline.org (United States) for a list of additional resources. This service offers bilingual crisis support in each country, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

 

 

☆Let’s Think

1.       Share cases you know of the three kinds of harmful speech the professor mentions.

・Hate speech     e.g. Online right-wingers amplify hate against an ethnic group or women.

 

・Misinformation  e.g. In the first 72 hours after Noto Megaquake that happened on January 1^st, 2024, some politicians wrongly advised that volunteers not go to the affected areas to avoid traffic jam, which never happened. As a result, help was not available for those who were in need.

 

・Cyberbullying   e.g. Monomanias make hundreds of catfish and obsessively and incessantly send nasty messages to a target individual.

 

 

2.       Who do you agree with, Kristy or Matt? Why?

 

 

☆Hints for Points

Agree

1.       Fascists will take advantage of hate speech to agitate the public to discriminate against a certain group of people to wage war on the country that the people belong to.

 

2.       Misinformation and disinformation increase on the Internet because anyone can send information on it. It is dangerous especially in emergency. So far, restriction depends on users’ common sense.

 

3.       The scale of slander and libel on the internet is incomparable. Bullies will mentally harm the target individuals and drive them to commit suicide with impunity in the worst-case scenario.

 

Disagree

1.       The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects any speech, including that on the internet. 

 

2.       Platforms restrain themselves by letting users report violations, and this is more democratic.

 

3.       The media are controlled by the government and big businesses. Restrictions will only be imposed negatively on the public.

 

 

☆Sample Body Structure

【Thesis】Although I mostly agree with Matt in that restriction of the freedom of speech on the Internet can compromise democracy, I have a caveat regarding the speed and the algorism of the Internet.

【Supporting Details】It takes only two or three hours for a group of a few thousand people connected on an online platform to pass around a piece of information. The speed is too fast for a piece of misinformation or disinformation to circulate and too slow for correction to come around. Usually, there are individuals affected by the wrong information by the time the truth is revealed. Also, especially in the case of unfounded gossip, lies are impossible to erase and the people who were victimized have no way to reinstate themselves. Concerning the algorism, tons of information that all people must know reach only a part of the population because most people do not search information related to politics. As a result, in the case of politics for instance, many voters never know the truth of a candidate or learn it only after the election is over. Similar cases are found in other areas like healthcare and education. Thus, I think there should be some government intervention on the quality control of the online information.

【Counterargument-treatment】Matt’s concern about the inviolability of the First Amendment is understandable as it supports democracy, but the fact is that those who are ill-intentioned are taking advantage of naïve individuals through social media to get political results they want with impunity by using social media, and this situation must be dealt with.

【Conclusion】Thus, I believe that harder restriction is necessary to prevent destruction of democracy.

(251 words)