And They Didn’t Even Notice
While all the vast majority of hyper-partisan n00bs bloggers were busy complaining about attack ads and which leader of which political party had just told the biggest lie the Canadian Human Rights Commissions was also busy
No ‘free pass’ for online comments
Anyone who runs an online message board, from the lowliest vanity blogger to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, can be charged under federal human rights law if visitors to their site post hateful comments, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
In final submissions this morning at the hate speech hearing of Marc Lemire, operator of the far-right freedomsite.org and a prominent figure in Canada’s “white rights” movement, CHRC lawyer Margot Blight said there is no “free pass” for the website owners.
“If a message board owner can’t manage to ensure the content of the message board is complying with Canadian law, then the message board should not be operating,” she said.
While it would certainly shut down a whole bunch of what are, in my opinion, really stupid websites that spew bigoted drivel into the blog-0-sphere on a daily basis, the fact is that there are not enough fingers and toes in the bunker to rhyme off just exactly how many ways this sort of stupid philosophy could be abused by anyone with a keyboard and an ax to grind.
There are a lot of unpopular thoughts out there folks, a lot of narrow mindedness, a lot of bigotry, and a lot of racism, and it needs to be confronted head-on using facts, reality, mockery, and ridicule - not by authoritarian commissions that are already allowing themselves to be willingly misused telling us what we can and cannot say, and deciding what is, or is not, in or out of bounds.
If someone is out there actively inciting real honest to gods hate then charge them under a real law, stand them in a real court, and have their accusers confront them in front of a real judge and jury, otherwise, if this politically correct b/s is allowed to stand, we’ll all soon be blogging in the age of the 100% moderated comment policy until either
- [a] someone with enough money can take it all the way to the top of the court list and hopefully get it stuck down; or
- [b] the Canadian Human Rights Commission is brought to heel by legislation
– if we’re blogging at all.
[ h/t Jacks News Watch ]
Hear hear.
You realize of course, that you and The Sentinel would be on the same page with this issue but I am sure his response would not be similiar to your cool logic.
I am surprised he has not picked up on this yet as he has a strong hate on for the HRC’s
As a parting shot, these HRC’s seem to be infested with barking dog leftists. Good to see that a sensible leftists as yourself are disowning them.
Excellent post stageleft. Very well said.
This is another example of people who live in a twisted world of intellectual concepts far removed from reality. By even stating this, she is assuring herself, and others like her a few lifetimes of work. They will need to hire a lot more people to start enforcing this bullshit.
I’m pretty sure that when that evil Mr. Harper wins a majority government, he will make some serious changes, much along the lines of what you stated, stageleft.
I found your site via Lance over at Smalldeadanimals.com
Congratulations on you stand. It is so encouraging to hear you say “it needs to be confronted head-on using facts, reality, mockery, and ridicule”.
I think Macleans / Steyn will take it to the Supreme court if found guilty by the BCHRC.
Bravo.
If someone is out there actively inciting real honest to gods hate then charge them under a real law, stand them in a real court, and have their accusers confront them in front of a real judge and jury.
Exactly.
Well, or just make fun of them lots.
You’re OK for a collectivist.
There’s no doubt about it Occam, Mikhail Bakunin had some good things to say.
I don’t agree. It’s not all or nothing. Obviously the notion that we should stay awake 24/7 to ensure that nobody publishes hate, as defined in the Act, in a comment on our sites is ludicrous. It sets far too high a bar for all of us. We simply couldn’t function. As reported, this is a totalitarian position, although the reportage has been so fraught that I would like to hear this from Blight’s own mouth.
But on the other hand, like any other administrative tribunal, the Human Rights Commissions do two things: a) they perform the grunt-work that no court has the time or resources to undertake, while Commission decisions are properly reviewable by Canadian courts, and b) they are far more accessible to common folks like me than the formal court system.
Can the system be abused? Certainly. What’s called for is better screening mechanisms at the outset. The bar for banning Internet speech should rightly be a high one. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.
I disagree Dr. Dawg. The government should not be in charge of legislating who’s feelings are not allowed to be hurt. You are arguing from the position that the system needs to be accessible for these types of offenses and I disagree. If something criminally grevious is said, the matter is taken to the police and it costs the injured party nothing. It is a crime. If it is an attack of a more personal nature, then the injured party must decide if he or she wishes to respond with words or with lawyers. It is a choice. Particularly in this day and age, the ability to respond and debate is most accessible to anyone.
The danger in giving the government the power to control debate is that power corrupts, and as you can see, the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of meddling bureaucrats. As a society, we are developing the technology to provide instant information to the masses, we need to learn to grow up, act like adults and deal with the realities of what that means.
Bravo, sir.
Needless to say, I stand with you and the likes of Ron Good and the Carbuncle who have been saying this for ages.
The answer to hate speech and the bile spewed by idiots like Styen and Levant is MORE speech, not less.
I heartily await some of the SDA commenters here vociferously condemning the use of SLAPP suits by Ezra Levant as much as they do against HRC.
Both are an afront to free speech and expression.
No one really cares what bloggers say. I think this is an attempt at self-glorification, SL.
The issues with regard to people like Steyn relate to the audience they can command with mass media. There’s an issue of scale here. And if you are not worried about that, just wait until the public airwaves are filled to capacity with FoxNews and hate-radio, where “more speech to combat hate speech” will be as effective as spitting against a tsunami.
And so you believe that unelected government officials should be the gate-keepers? What if they don’t care for your views one day?
As to scale, if a blogger from her basement in Saskatchewan can command the audience that SDA gets, I would say that scale is only limited by interest in the message - good or bad interest.
There’s also a question if we, as a society, have a moral imperative to act to prevent harm when we see it might occur. One could easily argue that speeding, in and of itself, harms nobody. Thus there is less of a reason to punish people who speed then there is to punish people who say things like “All latinos are shifty and lazy, and will try to steal your money if you hire them on a contract job” — because statements like that do hurt people when they are believed, they can cause real losses of income and jobs.
The typical answer is “Well we just argue back, show facts, and stuff” but that assumes that a person is actually looking for the facts, and that the rebuttals can be found.
The bar should definitely be set very high, but I don’t think it should be eliminated.
There’s a reason why authoritarianism creeps and freedoms are eroded Ti-Guy.
I obviously disagree with you, but even if you’re right doesn’t that make them a great target …. a few blogs…. who cares…. what do they matter…. see above
I’m at sharp odds with Dr. Dawg over Section 13 and I think HRC’s have been badly corrupted, and I also think going after Steyn while treating the CIC with kid gloves was a huge, elitist blunder, but where did we get this idea that racist hate speech directed against other Canadians is just about “hurting feelings”? Stageleft, do you know what passes for “debate” about aboriginal peoples on too many blogs? Do you think the answer is just to tell our aboriginals that sticks and stones may break their bones, etc.? There is a point where the distinction between speech and action blurs and where repeated unacceptable speech becomes mainstream through repetition. I am no more impressed with the absolutist libertarian argument about hate speech than I am with the argument that beefy young tatooed thugs swearing profusely at little old ladies in public parks is part of the heritage bequeathed by John Locke.
I don’t have any magic solutions and I would really like to see a Royal Commission on this one, but I will tell you one thing. If I’m in a public (’cause the free-speechers think that makes a big difference) hockey arena and hear the crowd chanting “Ragheads go Home” at a Muslim kid playing, I want it stopped fast, firmly and however, Charter of Rights be damned. So why is the printed word all that different?
Anyone who runs an online message board, from the lowliest vanity blogger to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, can be charged under federal human rights law if visitors to their site post hateful comments, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The HRCs don’t charge people. They arbitrate complaints by citizens against other citizens. That fact alone and the writer’s inability to grasp the concept renders the article worthless.
Sure they do, Robert. Just like The Inquisition mediated doctrinal disputes.
HRCs do not “arbitrate” complaints between citizens - in many provinces, they have carriage of complainants that are brought before a Human Rights Tribunal - the HRC controls access to the Tribunal. Not every complaint gets a hearing, just complaints that the HRC believes are well-founded and raise important issues. So they are, in a sense, like prosecutors, but a person has to have made the complaint in the first place. BTW, this system changed recently in Ontario where the HRC now has a very limited role and complainants now complain directly to the Tribunal itself. But it is the Tribunal that hears and decides the case, not the Commission.
While a few Conservative readers cast their gaze this way, it might be worth pointing out that the Conservative Party itself poses a threat to the continuation of blogging:
http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2008/09/15/harpercopyright-bill-to-put-bloggers-in-debt/
and it doesn’t have to do with hate speech. Lance has cleverly covered this topic before, but I hope will again in the election campaign.
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