Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
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
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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?
I may be wrong but you're downright ugly!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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...
always mosh clockwise
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.
You don't have a right NOT to be offended. People need to get over themselves and the government needs to keep its hands out of where it doesn't belong.
When millions disappear from earth, it's not aliens, it's the rapture.
Around the world freedom of speech, though and expression is under attack. People must respect the opinions & expressions of others even when it's WRONG. I could care less what White Supremists think, but I'd rather know who the crazies are rather then having them bottle it up inside. Take Germany for example, still there is Nazi sympathizers even though it's illegal to deny the holocost, etc.
Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's a FACT, or it's RIGHT. More times than not, it means the opposite.
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).
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.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
Freedom of expression is intended to protect things that offend somebody, whether it be a government or other people. If it's uncontroversial, it's in no need of defense. Canadians should be asking themselves if they're OK with having their right to express themselves in offensive terms squashed whenever some pressure group or governmental entity doesn't like it.
You could say that the ISP got shafted in this one and was fined for things beyond its control, but if you actually RTFA, you will find out that one of the persons charged personally for posting hate messages is also the owner of the ISP.
I don't think this case is a precendent-setting as the original post makes out.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
In other words, these rights are defined narrowly so as to allow arbitrary restrictions to the extent that they are justified in a free and democratic society.
Which leads to a number of intersting questions:
1) Can the legislature forbid, say, blasphemy or degrading another religion? What about the Danish Cartoons?
2) Is the limitation on hate speech really demonstrabl justified in a free and democratic society? If so where exactly is that line drawn?
3) Could the Parliament ban a political party on the grounds that they teach in the abstract a moral duty to the violent overthrow of the government even if no preparations are being made for said insurrection? And was the Communist Party ever so banned?
I doubt that most Americans really understand or value the extent to which we have freedom of expression in our society. The defining case and (IANAL) governing precident in this area in the US is the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio that held that saying things like "This is what we are going to do to the niggers... bury the niggers... we intend to do our part" (see footnote 1 in the majority opinion in the case) at a KKK rally could not be criminalized using criminal syndication and racketeering laws. In essence the line in the US between protected speech in this area and unprotected speech is crossed when there is an intent to cause immanent lawless action. Even threats of violence *in the abstract* are protected provided that there is not any attempt to prepare to carry them out.
I have not yet found any other country that has the same robust protection on freedom of expression as the US. And I am profoundly grateful for my citizenship in this great republic.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
And this makes them immune to criticism? Canadians are always sniping at us about things like our "lax" gun laws and non-governmental health care, so we get to do the same. Or would that be more "hate speech" as far as Canadians are concerned?
I think that the ruling sends a very strong message that in Canada freedom of speech is not nearly as important as making sure that no one's feelings get hurt.
Why is protecting the rights of idiot white surpremacists important? Because they are the canary in the coal mine. When the rights of the unpopular are abridged, everyone's rights are in danger.
Univeral freedom of speech helps ensure the health of society. When unpleasant ideas and beliefs are expressed, it acts as a sort of innoculation against them. When these ideas are oppressed and only shared in secret, they tend to grow like a cancer beneath the surface of society, unknown and unchecked.
When universal freedom of speech is attacked and undermined, it sets the stage for further abuses. Just look at China. Is that what the people of Canada want for their children and grandchildren? Which is worse, living in a totalitarian regime, or living in a free society where you are sometimes subjected to ideas you do not agree with and find offensive?
The only effective means of thought control is information control, but don't take my word for it. Here's a quote from someone whose mastery of propaganda and its uses is unquestioned:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945
Abridging the rights of the unpopular is the first dangerous step towards the kind of world Goebbels lived in. Not only that but it serves no useful purpose even in the short run. Making neo-nazi's be quiet doesn't make them go away. All it does is ensure that their activities and efforts at recruitment are that much more difficult to detect.
You would think that people would know better, but then 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
After the incident was publicized, the Ontario Ministry of Education was investigated and two teachers were suspended.
Canadian Islamic groups are now protesting the inequity of the Ministry's actions. They are demanding that the Ministry investigate hate speech at Jewish schools. And as an example of what they are concerned about, the Canadian Islamic Congress issued a press release on Friday calling for the investigation of a Kingston-area Hebrew school. The reason? A nine-year-old student at the school published a letter in the Kingston newspaper, the Whig-Standard, charging that Palestinians wished "to push the Israelis into the sea." According to the Islamic Congress, the views expressed in the child's letter are views "damaging to healthy relationships among many Canadians in our multicultural and pluralist society." Maybe you remember that famous jibe of Anatole France's about the law with majestic impartiality forbidding both the rich and poor to sleep under bridges? In the same way, the Canadian Islamic Congress seems to believe that healthy multiculturalism should treat exactly equally an Islamic school that encourages young Muslims to fantasize about murdering Jews - and a Jewish school that teaches its students to object to being murdered.
Therein lies the danger. As Jefferson so aptly wrote centuries ago, the best cure for such speech is more free speech and the clear light of day. To involve the government in such matters can only result in direct government involvement in private political debate. In Canada, if the government objects to what one says, one is simply declared illegal. One must shut up or face the full sanction of the law. No doubt this would please our liberal friends to no end, having thoroughly lost every public policy debate since around 1979. We understand that freedom of speech is painful to liberals. We know what you're going through, having had to live through the era when you controlled the public debate and no dissenting voices to liberal orthodoxy were allowed into the hallowed halls of CBS News or the New York Times.
linky:
http://newsisyphus.blogspot.com/2005/04/canada-and -hate-speech-codes.html
You can be sure that only white racists will be prosecuted. Islamic hate will be tolerated, and no fines will be assesed on Canadian web sites that advocate the killing of infidels.
I agree with the thinking behind hate crime laws: people who are nasty curs should be smacked down hard. The problem I have is these laws elevate certain people over others. A crime against a person of religion X is worse than a crime against a person of religion Y. A crime against an immigrant from Mexico is worse than a crime against your American neighbor.
This is just wrong. Like the money laundering laws. They were meant with good intent but are now fraught with loopholes and gotchas and they hurt more innocent people than they ever help.
The problem with all this is where do you draw the line? These laws become tools to advance a prosecutor's career, rather than deterring or punishing crimes. These are the laws they hit you with when they need to "make an example" out of you.
I suggest you all read this. (hint: bookmarking the CCC makes having legal discussions a bit more sensible :-) )
Hate speech in Canada is only when it incites people to commit violence against the said group being hated.
It's legal in canada to say "I hate all $GROUP" as long as you don't say "kill $GROUP".
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I am a Canadian and personally think that white supremists or any other group that has a general hate for people because of relgion, skin color, etc. are scum of the earth. However, I do not think that the ISP should be held responsible for what these people did. This would be equivilent of somebody posting racist remarks on slashdot and having the owners of slashdot held liable for this.
In general though I think that Canadian laws go to far in outlawing hate speach. Could hate speach not be considred a freedom of expression? Where is the line drawn on what is considred hate speach and what is considred freedom of speech? Could the same laws that outlaw hate speech be somehowe turned against us and used against people's freedom of speech?
Racism is wrong, and it would be very bad for the government to support it in any way, but this is an inhibition of free speech. Now, stopping someone from expressing racist thoughts may not be all that bad in and of itself, but neither is unwarranted wiretaps of terrorists. If the government can prevent "hate" speech, it can prevent anything being said that is contrary to its values.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
of hateful ideas.
The Nazis themselves were censored in 1925-1927, and yet during this time, their membership doubled. Clearly this censorship does nothing except remove "dangerous ideas" from the public forum and into private conversations where the public is denied a right of rebuttal.
As I understand it, holocaust denial is not a crime in the UK, nor is chanting outside the Danish Embassy "Denmark, USA, 7/7 on it's way" (though there is a movement in the UK to criminalize the latter if Blair gets his way). Yet it is in Canada? Why? What rational purpose can this serve? And how can one create a situation out of a law like that which can afford equal protection to all as required by the Constitutional Act?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
From the Soviet Constitution of 1936:
Article 12. Supreme power in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic is exercised by the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, and in the intervals between Congresses by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee.
Article 13. In order to ensure genuine freedom of conscience for the working people, the church is separated from the State, and the school from the church: and freedom of religious and anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.
Article 14. In order to ensure genuine freedom of expression for the working people, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic abolishes the dependence of the press on capital, and places at the disposal of the working class and the poor peasantry all the technical and material requisites for the publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books and all other printed matter, and guarantees their unhindered circulation throughout the country.
Article 15. In order to ensure genuine freedom of assembly for the working people, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, recognizing the right of citizens of the Soviet Republic freely to hold assemblies, meetings, processions, etc., places at the disposal of the working class and the poor peasantry all buildings suitable for the holding of public gatherings, complete with furnishing, lighting and heating.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The article talks about advocating attacks
so it looks as though the bad guys could have been taken down for conspiring to commit criminal damage or incitement to arson, or some other offence grounded in planning or attempting a straightforward criminal, physical act.Then the article goes on to quote the Human Rights Act
So a moral panic about incitement has been leveraged to pass a law that gives the authorities wide powers to tell people to shut the fuck up or else, and all in the name of human rights.
Wait... are you telling me that you can vow to "fucking kill" an entity without legal repercussions?
I suppose if you later try to "fucking kill" an entity, it might be evidence of forethought and premeditation...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Whoa -- can everyone slow down for a second and take a look at the facts?
From http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971 358637177&c=Article&cid=1142031016503:
In essence, the /. summary is not telling the whole story. This isn't a case of some corporate ISP where some customer happened to be running a hate site getting fined. In this case the ISP owner was providing the content, and not just hosting it.
Additionally, it wasn;t the ISP that was fined -- it was the people who created the illegal content, one of whom happens to own the web service provider in question.
You can't just start an ISP in order to avoid hate speech laws. The /. summary is highly misleading in this case, so please get off your high-horses and take a look at the facts before starting yet another rant, okay?
Yaz.
Look, I understand where your concerns are coming from, but in this case you're going off the deep end, because the fact of the matter is, the /. summary is wrong.
See http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971 358637177&c=Article&cid=1142031016503. In this case, the person who owns the web hosting service was generating the hate content. In addition, it wasn't the web hosting service which was fined -- it was the owner who was generating and posting the hate content onto his own service.
In other words, you're safe to run an online forum in Canada. If some ass-hat posts something in an attempt to incite hatred towards a group, you're not liable. If, however, you post that hate incitement, you are liable, regardless of the fact that you happen to own the web hosting service you're using.
Clearer? Good.
Yaz.
America's constitution only says that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech". But yet, America clearly has laws against certain types of speech. For example, it's illegal to utter a death threat. Isn't that to "abridge the freedom of speech"? I could quote to you American supreme court decisions where they state that freedom of speech may in certain cases be restricted, but I'm sure you're familiar with those cases already.
Isn't it better to instead state clearly in the constitution (as Sweden does) that speech may indeed in certain cases be restricted? I think it's much more confusing to have wording in the constitution which says that no speech may be restricted, and then have laws which do (and thus clearly violate that part of the constitution), but which people accept because society would not function otherwise.
Also, America has clever ways around its constitution. For example, it's enough to declare that someone is an "enemy combatant", then that person is no longer protected by the constitution (or by any other law), and the American government can do whatever they want to him.
I think this shows pretty clearly that America is inferior in terms of its legal system. Sweden does not jail people indefinitely without trial or torture them. America does.
Here's the Canadian Criminal code. Search on "Hate Propaganda". Here's the relevant parts.
Seems pretty clear and reasonable so far. We can't advocate the extermination of any identifiable segment of our population, and we can't incite hatred against a group if, in the authorities judgement, it is likely to cause a "breach of peace". In other words, it recognizes that speech that incites violence does not deserve the same protections as speech that doesn't. Further, the law explictly states a number of defenses against this law. Use any of these and you can incite all the hatred you want.
This, to you, warrants a warning to us poor Canadians to avoid a future where our grandchildren are as free as they would be in Red China?
It's particularly rich coming from an American. Right now you guys are far closer to totalitarianism than Canada will ever be in a hundred thousand lifetimes. You've got the Homeland Gestapo interrogating people due to their choice of T-shirts or library books. You've got a president and attourney general who equate questions and dissent with giving "aid and comfort" to terorrists. You have a labour system where, for voicing your true opinion to your boss, you can lose your children's health coverage.
I think you've got much greater problems to take care of at home before you concern yourself much with us poor Canadians. Don't worry about us, we're living a lot more freely than you.
For the first time in Canada, an Internet service provider has been found guilty and fined for hosting websites that spread hate messages against blacks, Jews and Muslims.
I'll believe these enforcers of intolerance might even have some claim to fairness after they go after the hate speech on some of the Muslim websites with equal vigor. Yes there's white hate speech, which most of us simply avoid because it's not our cup of tea, but by no means in this world is that the only hate speech easy to locate on the Internet.
I'm waiting...
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Just because it contains the words "I hate" doesn't mean it conforms to the legal defininition of "hate speech".
Indeed, the entire section of the Criminal Code pertaining to these limits is called "Hate Propaganda". Let's take a look at what the act defines "hate propaganda" as:
As you're not attempting to incite genocide against an identifiable group, your statement doesn't rise to the status of "hate propaganda".
That's a nice straw man you've built up there. Mind if I borrow him for my garden?
There is no logic to your position at all, because you've based your argument on a fallacy: your statement doesn't rise to the legal requirements for hate propaganda as set out in the act (not for the least of which because you didn't direct it at an identifiable group, where (quote) "identifiable group" means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.).
I've linked to the revelant section in the Criminal Code of Canada several times in this article. The section on Hate Propaganda isn't long -- take five or ten minutes to read it over before you go off half-cocked about "freedom" and "the government".
Yaz.
This is indeed a different discussion. I was merely objecting to the inflamatory and misleading Slashdot summary. The impression which Slashdot "editors" wanted to create was that it was some "random, innocent bystander ISP" which was being held accountable for something on one of the million of its websites, i.e. "Panic now! Anthing anyone posts on your hosting servers will get you in Jail! Run! Scream!". In fact, it is the people responsible for the site (who happened to be the owners of the ISP) who are being held accountable.
In Canada speaking out what you think [however horrible] to friends is different from publishing your ideas in various forms. [emphasis mine]
But that's the whole point. While I admit ignorance of Canadian law, here in the U.S., the whole point of freedom of speach isn't so you can be a douchebag in public, but to prevent the suppression of alternative or countering political viewpoints, so that the parties in power cannot render illegal any speach which disagrees with the 'official' stance of those in power.
Unfortunately, sometimes people abuse their right of free speach, for ex. when condoning hatred of other groups, but that is by far the lesser evil compared to criminalizing speach against one's government. It's an all-or-nothing situation, folks. You may rejoice the silencing of one whose views you vehemantly disagree with, but where does it end? How long before YOUR views are illegal?
Humans are by definition imperfect, and so any laws we make will be imperfect as well. Just as Ben Franklin wrote "that it is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer [in prison]", so too the same principal to speach and communication applies: Better a hundred corrupt voices be heard than a single noble voice be silenced.
So, would you feel comfortable with someone going around saying something like this
Nope.
So, would you want such a nutcase to enter your country? Would you want them living down the steet from you?
Nope, and nope.
Free speech isn't a license to promote hatred
Well, see, the thing is, you're just plain wrong here.
Free speech is the license to promote any damn thing you want to, no matter how repugnant someone else finds it.
Anyone who uses this right to promote hatred is a repulsive person who deserves to be ostracized from polite society, to be sure.
But to prevent someone from expressing a point of view -- no matter how disgusting -- is to bring thoughtcrime into the legal canon.
Because as soon as you start shutting people up because you don't like what they say is the moment someone else can shut you up because they don't like what you say. This is an issue regarding the free exchange of ideas, even if those ideas are things you don't want to hear (especially if those ideas are things you don't want to hear!)
Now, there are certainly examples where you can "incite" others to do harm in ways that are not protected by free speech (a lynch mob comes to mind). In that case, it is not just the speech, but also the circumstances that make the action illegal. On the Internet, we should be extremely wary of ever claiming that certain speech is illegal because usually the circumstances that would make it illegal (as with a lynch mob) simply do not exist. In particular:
But, as is it with yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, the lynch mob is the edge case. Unless you wish to repeat history where certain groups are oppressed because of their beliefs (and the oppression comes in the form of making it illegal for them to express those beliefs), we should fight tooth and nail to keep Free Speech pure.
Further, I think we agree that causing harm to people is not beneficial to society. In that case, let us make it illegal to cause the harm, rather than speak about causing the harm. I find that we like to muddle the issue by tracing back too far in what we would like to think the causality was. There are people that want to outlaw Doom because the kids who slaughtered other students at Columbine played the game. We would love to go out and find that the vehement racist who killed people of the race he despised did so because he read some website that "incited his hatred", when in fact we should probably just make the killing of the people illegal, and allow they guy who wrote the website to speak his mind.
I find it disconcerting that you went out of your way to address the substance of what GP was saying:
That is all totally irrelevant. If you truly had faith that his ideas were so absurd, then surly you wouldn't feel so threatened by them, would you? Let him speak as he sees fit - I am a better person for hearing his thoughts and knowing that there are people out there that feel the way he feels. If we feel somehow so threatened by someone's speech on the Internet that we feel he or she should not be able to express themselves, we should question our own motives before going after the person expressing ideas we don't agree with.Open exchange of ideas is what makes the United States (I realize this occurred in Canada) different than many other countries (China and North Korea come to mind). It is our most valuable asset, and it's logical extension lies in the democratic system itself, where everyone (is supposed to) have a voice if they so desire. We need to remember these ideals and constantly work towards them, recognizing that we may never get there.