On one side we have Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, positioning himself to buy Twitter for $43 billion , and not just because he wants to make money from the social media company. He says he wants to enhance freedom of speech, improve society and bolster democracy to boot.
There are even reports of coded messages hidden in the prospectus — occasional mentions of the figure 420, which is understood as a reference to smoking cannabis. But none of those initiatives made it to the finish line before last summer’s federal election — in part because trying to impose rules on something as unruly as the internet is extremely complicated, and in part because the Conservatives whipped up opposition by equating those efforts with a government clampdown on freedom of speech.
But things have changed over the course of the year. The freedom-of-speech critique from the pre-election days has taken on new vigilance. With the convoy protests, the Conservative leadership campaign and the persistent push south of the border, the call for “freedom” has attached itself not just to the debate about how to regulate social media, but also to vaccines, wearing masks and following all manner of public health restrictions.
Last summer, when the government sought public input into how to clamp down on hate speech, child porn and other online harms, it came away with athat concluded that Canadians really wanted Ottawa to step in and make sure everything was OK. They just weren’t sure how. The list of worrisome social media tentacles is never going to get any shorter, and the polarization around whether government needs to take a heavier hand or be hands-off completely is only intensifying.
hscoffield If only this level of scrutiny was applied when Meta (Facebook) bought out Instagram and WhatsApp… I wonder why not?
hscoffield Weird, I read this article and didn’t see any disclaimer informing of TorStar’s very obvious financial conflict of interest in seeing Bill C-18 passed. Not so much paid shills, but folks lobbying hard to be paid shills.