ISP Fined $5000 For Hate Content

eRondeau writes "In a precedent-setting ruling, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has fined a hosting company for carrying 'objectionable content'. The material in question was White Supremacist postings. From the article: 'The ruling sends a very strong message that Internet servers, if they are aware there is hate content and don't take timely action to remove it, can be held liable,' said the Ottawa lawyer who filed the complaint in February 2002. The individual posters were fined thousands as well."

Comments

Wait a sec...

[sedyn]

As a Canadian, I'm pissed that this has happened. Why? Because let's take this to its logical conclusion, if a patron of a restruant, a university student, or even someone on a bus, says something out of line and the owner of a "public" place does not object, then they might be penalized for it.

What does this lead to? Censorship by citizens, censorship by the government is bad enough, but this could lead to a disaster.

Frankly, the ISP shouldn't have to do anything unless ordered to. And, if in doubt, they should have contacted the authorities (I don't know if they did or not).

Now I don't feel like hosting any form of forum in Canada, becuase I don't want to be held responsible for what some random fuckwad says.

FTA:
  "The ruling shows Canadians have no tolerance for hate," Maillet said.

I have little tolerance for censhorship as well. I pray that they challenge this ruling with the Supreme Court (assuming it hasn't already happened, which I doubt). Because I doubt this "Human Rights Tribunal" is thinking about the consequences of this ruling in a greater context.

Which raises an interesting question

[einhverfr]

How robust is the freedom of expression in Canada? I know that such a right in Europe is more of a matter of legislative tradition than constitutional law.*

*For example, constitutional law in the UK is based on the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and the Parliamentary acts, none of which guarantee freedom of speech to the citizens

Flamebait

[kermitthefrog917]

So does this mean that some of the flamebait that appears on slashdot can have legal consequences?

Slashdot has a policy of not filtering its comments, they leave it up to the moderators to sort it out. But even though most off-color/hate comments are modded down, they still appear if you browse at -1. Any thoughts?

whos the boss?

[zxnos]

honesty, who gets to define 'hate speech'? and do we really want to define such a thing? what happens when the definition broadens? and it will...

a few years back colorado made not wearing your seatbelt a secondary offense, you couldnt get pulled over for it. they recently passed a law to allow officers to pull a person over for not wearing a seatbelt. i know slippery slope is a logical fallacy, but it happens...

Common carrier

[Harmonious Botch]

ISPs in the US should still be protected by common carrier status. What this does is simply drive business from Canadian ISPs to US ( and elsewhere ) ISPs.

Re:Common carrier

[yuna49]

US ISP's are not treated as common carriers nor do they want to be. It's true that some legislation exempts US ISPs from responsibility for the content on their servers, but those are specific exemptions granted in particular cases.

If ISPs were common carriers, the current controversy over a "tiered" Internet structure would be moot. Common carriers, by definition, cannot discriminate based on the content of the information being transmitted. Giving priority to particular types of data, or data sent by particular providers (e.g., Google), would be clearly illegal in a common carrier regime.

Congress and the FCC distinguish between "telecommunications" services, which are usually covered by common carrier regulation, and "information" services which are not. These issues were generally resolved in the late 1990's in the context of payments by common carriers to the universal service fund which helps cover the cost of delivering telecom services to rural and other underserved areas. ISPs didn't want to make these payments (even if they were providing VOIP) and were successful in getting Congress to treat them as "information services." http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Rel eases/1998/nrcc8031.html

Perhaps you were thinking about the section of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that exempted ISPs if the material they hosted infringed copyrights
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u sc_sec_17_00000512----000-.html.
There's nothing in this provision that applies common carrier regulation to ISPs.

My understanding of the current state of ISP regulation is that, as private entities, they can refuse to host anything they dislike. However, unlike Canada, if the Federal government were to require the removal of content it found distasteful, the government would lose on First Amendment grounds. (I don't know whether this applies to state governments, though I'd guess that it does.)

My love for Canada just dropped massively

[aussie_a]

Wow, I never knew Canada was so totalitarian when it came to freedom of speech. Guess if you don't tow the liberal line your wallet suffers the consequences, even though there is no reasonable expectation that your actions will cause physical harm to anyone (and if there was such a reasonable expectation, then the laws need to be a lot stronger then a mere fine).

Official Website

[Sean0michael]

here is the home page of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (in English. Also available in French). It looks like they deal exclusively with discrimination cases as defined under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

I can understand discrimination, but is free speech discrimination? Does having a website calling for hate and attacks against Jews, Blacks, and Muslims, count as discrimination? I'm not sure it does. I'm all for Human Rights. But I'm not for censorship--especially when the government might find ME to be the one discriminating.

Re:From the Charter

[Chandon Seldon]

The United States, on the whole, is doing pretty good when it comes to basic freedoms, but we're not the best. For example, in various rankings of freedom of the press the United States doesn't manage to rank in the top 10 (1)(2).

(1) http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554
(2) http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=204& year=2005