An expansive federal law proposal to combat harmful online content is not only “fundamentally flawed” but also violates Canadians’ freedom of expression and privacy rights, warn internet law experts, who are calling on the Liberals to overhaul their approach.
The main problem with the so-called “online harms” proposal lies in its ability to filter content and block websites, which endangers the “survival of a free and open internet in Canada and beyond,” reads a submission to the Department of Canadian Heritage by the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law.