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Canadian internet bill S-210 is a step closer to becoming law

239 points| llm_nerd | 2 years ago |michaelgeist.ca | reply

240 comments

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[+] xemoka|2 years ago|reply
How the second reading vote went, so you know who to call and email, https://openparliament.ca/votes/44-1/609/

And everything said about it and the status in the house: https://openparliament.ca/bills/44-1/S-210/

[+] charles_f|2 years ago|reply
> If someone is using a VPN, they can go in any country, so it is going to be bypassing some of that

I love how the initial stated goal of the bill is to prevent involuntary access to pornography by children, but they're looking at how to prevent circumvention using VPNs.

[+] charles_f|2 years ago|reply
What if my MP already voted no? Do you pick random MPs and email them?
[+] ayakang31415|2 years ago|reply
Korea already has laws that are similar to the bill S-210, and it is extremely frustrating when I am visiting there. Every website that I want to use without any tracking is blocked by the South Korean government, thus I have to use VPN to use certain websites otherwise unavailable.
[+] grammers|2 years ago|reply
When will they ever stop? The moment we (=the people) have fought one surveillance law, they (=politicians) simply come up with another. Until we are too tired to fight anymore...
[+] imchillyb|2 years ago|reply
That’s their _politicians_ strategy. It’s a time worn political stratagem. Keep pushing the same bill through with a different name, different sponsors, and at a time few are paying attention.
[+] Nasrudith|2 years ago|reply
There has to be some sort of punishment for them to stop. Otherwise they'll just repeat it. If they find themselves consistently primaried or voted out for supporting bills they'll get the message.
[+] notnullorvoid|2 years ago|reply
I think blame may lie more on lobbyists than politicians. Though the fact that politicians haven't fixed the problems with lobbying doesn't look so good either.
[+] spacemanspiff01|2 years ago|reply
What not just have site that are serve explicit things advertise that. Have a large scale Blocklist, and if you serve explicit content, then you need to be on there.

Then have a option when people sign up for internet to block all the IPs associated with explicit stuff.

Adults and parents can choose "yes or no" when they pay for internet and then be done with it.

If children are still getting access, then their either technically savvy, which nothing will stop. Or an adult in their life is allowing unblocked internet.

Just make ip filtering easy and default so that parents can set it up without having to understand anything. It should be a required thing when you request internet access "do you want to filter out explicit content"

Some sites that have dual content may have to have separate IP addresses for non-explicit and explicit/non explicit. But that is relatively easy. And if they do not care, then they will by default end up on explicit list.

[+] ndriscoll|2 years ago|reply
A couple problems with that are that people will disagree on what is inappropriate for children (e.g. drugs, nudity, sex, simulated violence, real violence, simulated gore, real gore, foul language, educational material that's sexual in nature, hate speech, advertising), and parents may want unfiltered or differently filtered access for themselves while blocking it on a device/profile the child uses.

I imagine a huge firewall list is probably also technically challenging for ISPs unless there's some convention for IPs (like even/odd LSB).

But you can just have the site serve a content labels header. Specify what the content is, with a standard for topics which may be commonly considered inappropriate for children, and let parents configure controls at the OS level, which the browser should respect. This lets you even provide the info at the level of individual resources (so e.g. wikipedia could label images or pages with topics like nudity or violence, and parents could opt to allow/block topics). You could also have a coarse header indicating that the site does not want minors to access it, and that could be an option for the browser to block.

[+] rixthefox|2 years ago|reply
The one question I want to ask these government officials is "Where are the parents?"

If underage children are accessing explicit content, it is the parents, not the websites that are at fault. Why are you handing children devices that are not parental locked to only permit applications that have been approved by the parent?

If the parent fails to properly vet the apps they allow their children to use then it is the parent that needs to be questioned. Pushing this requirement onto websites and services is moving the goal posts. If the parents are too technically inept or unwilling to police their children's devices then they should not be handing them to their children.

[+] FirmwareBurner|2 years ago|reply
>"Where are the parents?"

Blaming the government for whatever their child does. It seems most parents, they have outsourced the primary education of their kids to the government and tiktok.

I told one such parent that the government is only in charge of educating your child to get a job, not teaching him basic behavior, values and life lessons, and that parent said "no, I pay taxes, I expect the government to teach him everything". Nuff said.

[+] nvy|2 years ago|reply
>The one question I want to ask these government officials is "Where are the parents?"

To be clear, this bill originated outside the government. The Canadian Conservative Party do not currently form the government. They are ideologically-driven religious fundamentalists who don't care "where the parents are". For them it's "porn == bad" and "government oversight == bad except if it's on an issue that my ideology happens to align with".

[+] mulmen|2 years ago|reply
Don’t get distracted by the red herring. This isn’t about protecting kids. It’s about power and control.
[+] whynotmaybe|2 years ago|reply
How to say you don't have kids without saying you don't have kids.

Unless you're the perfect kid, did you forgot what you did when you were a kid that you parent didn't agree on?

Kids are full of life and as the saying goes, life finds a way.

[+] mensetmanusman|2 years ago|reply
Family structure is devolving away from two stable parents, so the state is required to step in.
[+] tzs|2 years ago|reply
Internet is getting pretty easy to find access to. We may be past the point where parents can limit their kids to only accessing the internet through devices that the parents control.
[+] amtamt|2 years ago|reply
Where are "proper parental control" implemented?
[+] Eumenes|2 years ago|reply
Attributing blame to parents for anything in 2023, especially their internet or device usage, is incredibly faux pas.
[+] nojvek|2 years ago|reply
> Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.

It also says senators were afraid to vote against the bill.

Can someone explain to me why children looking at porn is a massively evil thing. Why that control should be in the hands of governments and not something a parent should decide for their kid.

Somehow looking at genitals at age 17 is an abomination but at 18 it is totally fine.

Showing half naked men and women in billboards is totally fine, but no tits dicks or vaginas.

What is so wrong with tits dicks and vaginas that we have to “protect” the children against them? All teens have a subset of tits, dicks and vaginas so it’s not like they are unaware of their existence.

[+] moduspol|2 years ago|reply
I don't have strong feelings either way, but I think in practice, the vast majority of parents would choose to have their kids not view it, yet do not have a practical way to enforce that choice.
[+] TriangleEdge|2 years ago|reply
I worked at a go kart racing track when I was a teen and the company installed something called "governors" that would limit the speed at which the go karts could go. The governors had a remote control which allowed an operator to selectively limit the speed of each individual go kart. As a 14 year old, if someone did a slight playful bump into another racer, I would govern them. It's the first instance of "power" I had over others. And.., I abused it for the "good".

This being said, I have a belief that if you give someone a button to ruin someones life, some people will push the button with thoughtless abandon.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not seeing a democratic pushback mechanism in this bill, and I think this is a disaster. This is also being said in the context that the most voted petition in Canadian history is e-4701, which is a vote of no confidence.

[+] alephnerd|2 years ago|reply
This proposed law, and similar ones across the English speaking work (Australia, UK, NZ, US) are because of lobbying by Baroness Beeban Kidron [0] for a decade.

An earlier comment of mine:

Baroness Beeban Kidron has been lobbying for stringent anti-CSAM measures in tech for years [0].

She's lead a major pressure campaign in the US, Canada, and the UK for years [1]. Her charity 5Rights and WeProtect both have been able to back Labour and the Tories so she's able to lobby across the aisles. It doesn't hurt that the publishing company her parents founded (Pluto Press) has a strong niche in the political space.

The Molly Russell suicide also played a role [2], which she leveraged to highlight the need for restrictive anti-CSAM measures, especially as it became a top tabloid story in the UK.

[0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/14/british-baroness-on...

[+] winter_blue|2 years ago|reply
> the most voted petition in Canadian history is e-4701, which is a vote of no confidence

Most Liberal Party members voted against this bill (S-210 [1]). Support for this bill comes from the remaining parties, ie: (1) the Conservative Party, (2) the NDP (ie Canada’s semi-socialist progressive party), and (3) Bloc Quebocois (Quebec’s nationalist party).

e-4701 [2] is a petition introduced by a conservative. Conservatives in Canada have a vested interest in pushing out Justin Trudeau, so there are no surprises there.

[1] https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/44/1/609

[2] https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Peti...

[+] citrusybread|2 years ago|reply
does that really shock you though?

e-4701 has less to do with the actual popularity of the parties or the system than it does with the fact that we're 8 years in with a fairly progressive leader. c.f. the annual anti-Trudeau demonstrations that are astroturfed (yellow vests, "freedom convoy 2022", united we roll, etc). This system didn't exist when Harper was PM or anyone before it; and we're hardly at Mulroney level of discontent.

edit: also... the bill in question is opposed by the Liberal party at large (the ones who this petition oppose). it's mainly being pushed by the Conservatives and the Bloc (which makes for an odd union already) as well as the NDP (which pushes it completely into nutty territory of voting patterns). and it was introduced in the Senate - where most Senators do not have party affiliation.

[+] 99_00|2 years ago|reply
>This being said, I have a belief that if you give someone a button to ruin someones life, some people will push the button with thoughtless abandon.

What's the button in case of this legislation?

[+] everforward|2 years ago|reply
My underlying issue with the mechanism here is the use of affirmative defenses from

"Organizations (broadly defined under the Criminal Code) can rely on three potential defences:

The organization instituted a “prescribed age-verification method” to limit access. It would be up to the government to determine what methods qualify with due regard for reliability and privacy. There is a major global business of vendors that sell these technologies and who are vocal proponents of this kind of legislation. The organization can make the case that there is “legitimate purpose related to science, medicine, education or the arts.” The organization took steps required to limit access after having received a notification from the enforcement agency (likely the CRTC)."

(not quoted due to long lines and lack of line-wrapping in preformatted blocks)

Affirmative defenses shift the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused. The accuser does not have to prove that the accused didn't implement age-verification, or that the use was not educational.

The accuser only has to prove the presence of nude imagery (which is easy), and the accused then has to generate a case on how their age-verification is sufficient or their usage is educational (which is hard).

The burden of proof and work required thereby, rests almost entirely on the accused. The balance of effort required is heavily skewed.

It would also prevent any attempts to get a summary judgement prior to the trial, at least in the US. In the US, a summary judgement is only possible when the facts don't support the case. I.e. if we presume everything the plaintiff claims is true, it's still not a violation of the law.

Imagine someone says that you wearing purple was an assault on them; you could likely get a summary judgement because even if you were wearing purple and that caused them some trauma, it doesn't rise to the legal level of assault. The facts are irrelevant, because the entire case is wrong.

That doesn't work here, because the only thing the law cares about is whether nude imagery exists. In order to assert an affirmative defense you have to launch a defense, which requires a trial. There is no earlier point where you could say "hey, we're clearly a sex education site because x, y and z".

Imagine a sex education website. They very likely have indisputable nude content on their site. They're now in a situation where anyone in the country can meet a very low cost bar (find a nude image), and cause them to have to mount a difficult and expensive defense (prove one of the affirmative defenses at trial). The law doesn't require the plaintiff to prove or even identify the affirmative defenses that don't apply.

This law would be much better if the burden of proving that provider did not implement age verification, has not resolved any issues pointed out, and is not educational fell on the plaintiff. Summary judgements could be back in play; the judge could look at the evidence and say "even if I assume what you're saying is true, that doesn't prove the site isn't educational" and toss the case before the defendant has to build a whole case.

In my greater opinion, I don't think children accessing sexual content is a big enough issue to shift the burden of proof onto the defendant. I think ideally children wouldn't be exposed to pornography until they're old enough to contextualize the content into a coherent world view (e.g. the BDSM community takes a lot of care around consent and emotional well being that is sometimes not obvious from pornography tailored to the market). That being said, I think the "damage" done by seeing it earlier than one should is too low to justify this dramatic of a response.

[+] redm|2 years ago|reply
Protrcting privacy worked out so well with these cookie banners, I cant imagine what could go wrong with this…
[+] jerlendds|2 years ago|reply
Why are so many media organizations and news outlets quiet on this? I've been searching around for any hits of S-210 and it seems there's remarkably few! If you're Canadian let's spread the word!
[+] dade_|2 years ago|reply
Trudeau is subsidizing most of Canadian media. Who knows what Pierre will do, but I’ll take a bet that it could be a cost saving measure to stop handouts to ‘fake news’ MSM.

Justin seems to be aiming for a supernova exit… https://338canada.com/

[+] habibur|2 years ago|reply
I had been following C-18 closely. Wanted it to fail. Facebook/Meta bailed out of the market, deciding to not paying anything. The other one was Google which finally settled for paying $100m per year to a single institution which will divide the money among others.

That's still far less than what Canada was asking. 2% of their yearly revenue which was bumped up to 4% after Meta left. But Google's $100m is more like 0.5% of their yearly gross revenue in Canada.

[+] speak_plainly|2 years ago|reply
It was only a matter of time before a certain class of people figured out how to use the internet and subsequently ruin it. I'm more surprised it lasted this long.
[+] barbazoo|2 years ago|reply
That person obviously knows what they're talking about and are much smarter than me but I still think this here is a weasel thing to say.

> I think the best way to deal with the issue includes education, digital skills, and parental oversight of Internet use including the use of personal filters or blocking tools if desired.

That made me actually laugh. Internet access is ubiquitous, parental digital literacy is often low, none of those are actually helpful suggestions that would help address the symptom.

Imagine if we suggested that for other problems. "I think the best way to deal with gun violence includes education, gun skills, and parental oversight of gun use including the use of safety mechanisms and gun safes if desired."

I appreciate people spending their time fighting for our rights. But these arguments here weren't very practical in my opinion.

[+] genocidicbunny|2 years ago|reply
> That made me actually laugh. Internet access is ubiquitous, parental digital literacy is often low, none of those are actually helpful suggestions that would help address the symptom.

I think that works both for and against your point though. For the very same reason, it's not likely there will ever be a way to reliably solve this technologically. So while we may need some technological measures, we also need to educate parents and kids about this at the same time. Anyone trying to sell a technological 'this will solve the porn problem' solution should be viewed with a very critical eye.

[+] kelnos|2 years ago|reply
I think in the end we should just stop caring so much about this stuff. Yes, educate children, with a frank discussion, about porn and why it can be a problem.

But if a teenager really wants to find porn, they're going to find porn, and... so what? I downloaded low-quality porn JPEGs from BBSes as a teen in the early/mid-90s, and then found so much more porn on the internet in the mid/late-90s, and I turned out ok. Sure, some people end up addicted and/or with unhealthy views on sex and intimacy because of porn, but Draconian blocking schemes (that ultimately don't work) aren't the answer.

Maybe parents should actually parent their children. Install parental controls where possible (which I know are far from perfect), but otherwise, maybe give your kids some measure of trust. This particular thing isn't like worrying about a child predator luring your kid out to meet in person after finding them online; there's very little harm in a kid seeing some porn and then a parent finding out about it and disciplining the kid, if that's what they want to do. When I broke the rules as a kid, I got TV or Nintendo privileges taken away for a time; parents can take away a teen's internet-connected devices as punishment.

[+] wharvle|2 years ago|reply
> That made me actually laugh. Internet access is ubiquitous, parental digital literacy is often low, none of those are actually helpful suggestions that would help address the symptom.

And tools for enforcing any kind of rules on your own are hot garbage. Especially any that a normal person could possibly hope to figure out.

You either have to cut off the 'net entirely (which is less practical with each passing year) or commit to a second job of managing this crap.

I'm not a fan of bills like this, but also something's gonna have to change, or we'll get... bills like this.

My guess is nothing will change, and this sort of thing is what'll happen instead.

[+] iimblack|2 years ago|reply
I don’t think equating kids watching porn with gun violence makes sense. One has a much greater and more permanent effect so the reaction should be stronger. The other isn’t, in my opinion, a big deal and the way the government is trying to deal with it has much farther reaching effects than the issue warrants.
[+] adamomada|2 years ago|reply
The argument doesn’t work for gun violence because that’s other people using the equipment. It works if every kid has a gun (smartphone) and keeps shooting themselves with it though
[+] hackan|2 years ago|reply
This is freakin' nuts!! It should not pass, nor it should have reached such state, it is insane!
[+] cebert|2 years ago|reply
The good old it’s for the children position.
[+] captainkrtek|2 years ago|reply
Pick one of:

- National Security

- Protect the kids

[+] barbazoo|2 years ago|reply
Except that in this instance I can actually see the merit but obviously YMMV. I had access to porn since as far back as I can remember. In hindsight I wish something like this had been in place.
[+] kazinator|2 years ago|reply
There is another problem there: since the legislation would apply to so many kinds of sites it would have the effect of cutting off young people from services they rely on. Sites which don't mainly host explicit content. It could have life-long economic repercussions for disadvantaged youth. Very evil and stupid, these conservative shits.
[+] bawolff|2 years ago|reply
I was originally going to say - wouldn't this be pointless when stuff is hosted elsewhere in the world.

Then i remembered that pornhub is a canadian company. So maybe not as pointless.

[+] tempest_|2 years ago|reply
In 2023 I can't believe they are still naming bills like this

"Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography"

Every time a bill gets a moniker like that I assume it is hiding some major government over reach.

[+] tamimio|2 years ago|reply
“Terrorism” and “protect the kids!” are the most used boogeyman by governments in the last two decades or so to further violate private citizens privacy rights, freedom rights, and further monitoring and censoring communications, and the accusation is ready if you dare to stand against it.