Expert group concludes work with little attention given to website blocking proposal
By Amanda OYE
OTTAWA – The work of the government’s Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, which was appointed in March to provide advice on the government’s proposed approach to dealing with harmful content online, has come to an end with the summary of its final session being posted online last week, but the government will continue seeking input on the matter from Canadians and stakeholders throughout the summer.
“I thank the expert advisory group for their work,” said Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez in a statement emailed to Cartt.ca. “Their advice is very valuable as we take the next steps in addressing this complex issue.”
The minister went on to explain they will talk and listen to Canadians throughout the summer. “All this will inform our legislative and regulatory framework. We’re committed to getting this right and to engaging Canadians in a thorough, open, and transparent manner every step of the way,” he said.
The minister has already held roundtables in Eastern Canada “and Canadians agree that the tech giants have a responsibility to do more,” Laura Scaffidi, Rodriguez’s press secretary, said in a statement.
In addition to considering what the expert group and Canadians have to say, the government will consider the recommendations of the Public Policy Forum’s Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression.
A few days after the expert advisory group had its last meeting, “the Minister delivered opening remarks at the Public Policy Forum’s Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression,” a spokesperson from the Heritage department said in a statement.
“The Citizens’ Assembly, a representative group of citizens, discussed the work of the Expert Advisory Group and is expected to publish their recommendations this summer,” the spokesperson said, adding the minister “will engage Canadians, Indigenous Peoples, and key stakeholders, including tech giants, on harmful content online this summer.”
The expert group for its part, all agreed the government should adopt a risk-based framework, which would be “anchored in a duty to act responsibly”. This would mean regulated services would be obligated to identify the risks posed by their service, mitigate the risks, and report on their mitigation tools.
The summary of their final meeting indicates the group agrees on the importance of prevention and mitigating risks. The experts, however, disagreed on several specific components of the potential online harms legislation, including whether regulated services should be compelled through the legislation to remove content from their platforms. (The sessions operated under Chatham House Rule, so information on who supported which position was not disclosed.)
“Some experts voiced concern over mandating removal of any form of content, except perhaps content that explicitly calls for violence and child sexual exploitation content,” the summary says. “Other experts voiced preference for obligations to remove a wider range of content. They explained that it would be better to err on the side of caution.”
Some of the experts argued “an obligation for content removal is not compatible with an approach focused on risk management, and could risk disproportionately affecting marginalized groups. They explained that instead of being mandated to takedown content, services would be obligated to manage their own risk, which they could do through takedown, but they could also do through other tools.”
While discussion of whether regulated services should be compelled to take down content was debated, little attention seems to have been paid at this point to the government’s proposal to have telecommunications service providers (TSPs) block repeatedly offending websites.
A summary of the government’s expert advisory group’s fourth session does indicate some of the experts believe website blocking may be appropriate in a small set of circumstances.
“In these cases, the platform could only be blocked for a certain amount of time and that the blocking power should only be used in extreme circumstances where fundamental human rights are affected,” the summary reads. “It was also noted that blocking powers should only be used after a judicial review. It was mentioned that the courts already have inherent jurisdiction to issue an injunction.”
As an example, the summary refers to Project Cleanfeed Canada, a partnership with Cybertip.ca that blocks access to child pornography websites and content, which is supported by major Canadian TSPs.
The summary did not suggest there was any disagreement or dissenting opinions expressed on this matter.
Beyond the small section of the fourth session summary, website blocking is not discussed in the materials the government has posted on the expert advisory group’s work. And it was not included in the summary of the group’s concluding session, the purpose of which “was to surface the range of opinions on the key issues involved in a regulatory framework and gain clarity on both points of agreement and disagreement.”
This suggests the website blocking proposal was not considered to be a key issue, despite concerns having been raised about the proposal by TSPs during last year’s consultation on the government’s plans to table an online harms bill.
TekSavvy, for example, told the government in its submission to the consultation that its view is “site-blocking as an enforcement tool is generally simultaneously overly broad (as a result of the real risk of blocking legitimate content) while also ineffective.”
Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Telus, Cogeco and Quebecor commented jointly, telling the government that while they have previously been required through court orders to block some content, those instances involved blocking specific domain names or IP addresses.
They generally, however, lack the technical ability to block access to specific posts or comments hosted on an online communication service provider’s platform, their submission explains, meaning entire sites will need to be blocked, which may affect lawful content as well as the illegal content.
Other concerns were expressed about things such as the costs associated with being required to block access to sites, which may disproportionately impact smaller service providers.
Even though website blocking is framed as something to be used only as a last resort, rather than as a central part of the proposed legislation, these are important issues that will eventually need to be addressed.
