Life sentences for speech? Pre-crime detention? Ex post facto law? Anonymous accusers? It's all in Justin Trudeau's "Online Harms Bill," a true "threat to democracy"

I got in some hot water a while back for admitting I was relatively unconcerned with Republican villainy these days compared to other worries. This Canada Online Harms Act, whose details I missed earlier (apologies to Public and Yuri Bezmenov!), perfectly embodies the kind of thing that keeps me up at night now.

Whatever else Republicans have been up to, they haven’t been scheduling nuclear bomb runs over the whole concept of individual rights (although they’re trying to catch up with moves like the antisemitism bill). People will focus on the cartoon wokeness of Justin Trudeau’s bill, but that’s not what makes it scary — he’s trying to create a full-blown surveillance state, complete with a giant citizen army of paid snitches, with one stroke. Things not even imaginable a few years ago, like pre-emptive punishment for crimes not even committed or life sentences for what Canada’s former Chief Justice called “some words,” would be reality with this bill. Genuine political dissent would become logistically impossible, and virtual mob rule a certainty.

People misunderstood the content of stories like the Twitter Files to be solely about censorship. The real issue was the creation of huge extrademocratic bureaucracies that use digital levers to manipulate political life and whose growth is difficult-to-impossible to check. The way this bill casually dismisses things like the right to face your accuser or due process or protection from ex post facto law shows the utter contempt for democracy. These ideas have a lot of support in elite circles in America and I’m sorry, they’re operating on a completely different level of scary than something like the Trump movement even. Do people just not believe this stuff is happening, or do they think it’s okay? I don’t get it.

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
    22·
    2 months ago

    Genuine political dissent would become logistically impossible, and virtual mob rule a certainty.

    There’s a major difference between political dissent and hate speech.

    You can say: “I don’t think transgender people should be allowed to choose which bathroom they go to”, that just makes you a shitty person with no compassion. But if you say “If I see a trans women in the mens bathroom I’ll beat them up out of there”, that is very clearly hate speech and threats of violence.

    It’s not like it’s hard to treat people with basic respect. You can disagree without resorting to hateful comments and threats and name calling. If you don’t see the hate speech problem you’re probably part of the problem because surprise, it’s only conservatives you see online constantly spewing FUD and hate speech.

    • Old_Geezer@lemmy.caOP
      3·
      2 months ago

      it’s only conservatives you see online constantly spewing FUD and hate speech.

      That is complete nonsense — Both sides spew it. Extremism of any sort is evil. It happens on the left and the right.