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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?
The only thing that is really censored is hate speech (including Holcaust denial).
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
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.
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.
How is arguing a position the same as hate speech? If someone believes the Holcaust never happened, why can't they make that argument, show their facts, and show their logic.
What is better of the following 2 choices?
What is next? Will the people who wrote The Bell Curve go to jail for expressing ideas that most people disagree with? Will Rush Limbaugh be sentanced to prision for saying he thinks a black QB is given more chances to succeed than a white one?
There is a HUGE difference between expressing an idea and motivating other people to violence. There is a difference between writing "Black people unfairly steal admissions seats at the University of Michigan Law School" on the internet, and going to the University of Michigan and giving a speech in front of a mob to incite them to violence.
What will happen, if we let those with $$ decide what is true and false, is that anything they disagree with will become off-limits for debate.
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.
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.
l eases/1998/nrcc8031.html
u sc_sec_17_00000512----000-.html.
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_Re
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/
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.)
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.
Sigh...
Canada does have protections in the realm of freedom of speech -- it's called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it explicitly states:
(Ref: http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/).
Freedom of opinion and expression is one thing. You can hold the opinion that ${IDENTIFIABLE_GROUP} smells bad, looks ugly, and is the bane of all of society if you want to. You can even express this feeling.
what you can't do is incite others to genocide or hatred against an identifiable group (ref: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/181181.html#rid- 181219). And there are a number of specifically assigned defences right in the Criminal Code which exempt you from any form of punishment for said speech.
We're not talking about reasoned debate here. Reasoned debate is fine. Spreading hate speech in private is also fine. But you can't stand up in a public forum and advocate that the townsfolks take up pitchforks and kill every member of ${IDENTIFIABLE_GROUP} they can find.
You really think the US is that much different? Tell you what -- you start a website advocating your fellow Americans to go and kill George W. Bush. Set up an online forum where you start discussing exactly how you are going to go about it. Excercise your free speech to the limit. And then time how long it is before Homeland Security and the FBI are bashing down your door and taking your computer equipment away.
Perhaps the protection of minorities makes you think that Canada is lacking in freedom of speech. Whatever. Want to know what else Canada lacks? Race riots. Crosses being burned on people lawns. Lynchings. People being denied their democratic right to vote based on the colour of their skin.
In closing, you can say whatever damned stupid thing you want here in Canada -- but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences when you decide to start preaching hatered, and try to incite hatred between communities. Absolutely nothing good has ever come of allowing hatred to spread and flourish.
Yaz.
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.
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.