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ISP Fined $5000 For Hate Content
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Mar 11, 2006 05:22 PM
from the slippery-slope dept.
from the slippery-slope dept.
eRondeau writes "In a precedent-setting ruling, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has fined a hosting company for carrying 'objectionable content'. The material in question was White Supremacist postings. From the article: 'The ruling sends a very strong message that Internet servers, if they are aware there is hate content and don't take timely action to remove it, can be held liable,' said the Ottawa lawyer who filed the complaint in February 2002. The individual posters were fined thousands as well."
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Wait a sec... (Score:5, Interesting)
What does this lead to? Censorship by citizens, censorship by the government is bad enough, but this could lead to a disaster.
Frankly, the ISP shouldn't have to do anything unless ordered to. And, if in doubt, they should have contacted the authorities (I don't know if they did or not).
Now I don't feel like hosting any form of forum in Canada, becuase I don't want to be held responsible for what some random fuckwad says.
FTA:
"The ruling shows Canadians have no tolerance for hate," Maillet said.
I have little tolerance for censhorship as well. I pray that they challenge this ruling with the Supreme Court (assuming it hasn't already happened, which I doubt). Because I doubt this "Human Rights Tribunal" is thinking about the consequences of this ruling in a greater context.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:4, Funny)
which is right across Lake Michigan from... Milwaukee.
There are five great lakes, and the U.S.-Canadian border runs through four of them. You named the fifth.
On top of that, your post was at best tangentially related to what the GP said.
Nice work, dumbass.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, noone reads the original article. The ISP in question was owned by one of the supremacists fined. It changes the whole perspective on things.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm no it doesn't.
What are you saying, that folks only have a right to speak as long as they don't own an ISP? Huh?
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:5, Insightful)
Under the Canadian law it does.
What are you saying, that folks only have a right to speak as long as they don't own an ISP? Huh?
Again, it changes the message from "some random ISP is being held accountable for some random user's website" to "the people who operated the website are held accountible", under existing Canadian law.
If the law is "just" is a completely different discussion.
Re:Summaries (Score:5, Informative)
This is indeed a different discussion. I was merely objecting to the inflamatory and misleading Slashdot summary. The impression which Slashdot "editors" wanted to create was that it was some "random, innocent bystander ISP" which was being held accountable for something on one of the million of its websites, i.e. "Panic now! Anthing anyone posts on your hosting servers will get you in Jail! Run! Scream!". In fact, it is the people responsible for the site (who happened to be the owners of the ISP) who are being held accountable.
Re:Summaries (Score:4, Informative)
But that's the whole point. While I admit ignorance of Canadian law, here in the U.S., the whole point of freedom of speach isn't so you can be a douchebag in public, but to prevent the suppression of alternative or countering political viewpoints, so that the parties in power cannot render illegal any speach which disagrees with the 'official' stance of those in power.
Unfortunately, sometimes people abuse their right of free speach, for ex. when condoning hatred of other groups, but that is by far the lesser evil compared to criminalizing speach against one's government. It's an all-or-nothing situation, folks. You may rejoice the silencing of one whose views you vehemantly disagree with, but where does it end? How long before YOUR views are illegal?
Humans are by definition imperfect, and so any laws we make will be imperfect as well. Just as Ben Franklin wrote "that it is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer [in prison]", so too the same principal to speach and communication applies: Better a hundred corrupt voices be heard than a single noble voice be silenced.
No, you wait a sec... (Score:5, Informative)
Look, I understand where your concerns are coming from, but in this case you're going off the deep end, because the fact of the matter is, the /. summary is wrong.
See http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971 358637177&c=Article&cid=1142031016503 [thestar.com]. In this case, the person who owns the web hosting service was generating the hate content. In addition, it wasn't the web hosting service which was fined -- it was the owner who was generating and posting the hate content onto his own service.
In other words, you're safe to run an online forum in Canada. If some ass-hat posts something in an attempt to incite hatred towards a group, you're not liable. If, however, you post that hate incitement, you are liable, regardless of the fact that you happen to own the web hosting service you're using.
Clearer? Good.
Yaz.
Re:No, you wait a sec... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh...
Canada does have protections in the realm of freedom of speech -- it's called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it explicitly states:
(Ref: http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/ [justice.gc.ca]).
Freedom of opinion and expression is one thing. You can hold the opinion that ${IDENTIFIABLE_GROUP} smells bad, looks ugly, and is the bane of all of society if you want to. You can even express this feeling.
what you can't do is incite others to genocide or hatred against an identifiable group (ref: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/181181.html#rid- 181219 [justice.gc.ca]). And there are a number of specifically assigned defences right in the Criminal Code which exempt you from any form of punishment for said speech.
We're not talking about reasoned debate here. Reasoned debate is fine. Spreading hate speech in private is also fine. But you can't stand up in a public forum and advocate that the townsfolks take up pitchforks and kill every member of ${IDENTIFIABLE_GROUP} they can find.
You really think the US is that much different? Tell you what -- you start a website advocating your fellow Americans to go and kill George W. Bush. Set up an online forum where you start discussing exactly how you are going to go about it. Excercise your free speech to the limit. And then time how long it is before Homeland Security and the FBI are bashing down your door and taking your computer equipment away.
Perhaps the protection of minorities makes you think that Canada is lacking in freedom of speech. Whatever. Want to know what else Canada lacks? Race riots. Crosses being burned on people lawns. Lynchings. People being denied their democratic right to vote based on the colour of their skin.
In closing, you can say whatever damned stupid thing you want here in Canada -- but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences when you decide to start preaching hatered, and try to incite hatred between communities. Absolutely nothing good has ever come of allowing hatred to spread and flourish.
Yaz.
Re:No, you wait a sec... (Score:4, Informative)
Methinks you need a history lesson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_ in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Let's see -- in the 20th century alone I count 32 riots incited due to race in the US. This isn't counting the 2001 Cincinnati riots [wikipedia.org].
The frequency of cross burning and lynchings are a bit harder to state here, but in the 20th century were sufficiently [wikipedia.org] common [wikipedia.org] (admittedly moreso in some parts of the country than others).
As for denying people the right to vote, you should probably read up on the entire American Civil Rights Movement [wikipedia.org]. And perhaps about the murder of civil rights workers [wikipedia.org] who were trying to help register disenfranchised Black voters. Or perhaps you should read up on the problems with the voters list in Florida during the 2000 US Presiedntial Election [wikipedia.org]
These are sufficiently serious problems that the fact that they happen at all is too common. I won't pretend that Canada has a perfect record in this regard -- but compared to the US we're orders of magnitude better. The only reference to a race riot in the 20th century in Canada that I could find was from 1933 [wikipedia.org] (although I do wantt to note that there was a riot in Toronto in 1992 that coincided with the Rodney King riots in LA, it seemed more opportunistic and involved people of all races. It's hard to see what the motivation would be for it, considering Canada has no say over the laws, courts, or police forces of the United States. But who ever said a riot has to make sense?).
Yaz.
Re:Yes, BUT... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because it contains the words "I hate" doesn't mean it conforms to the legal defininition of "hate speech".
Indeed, the entire section of the Criminal Code pertaining to these limits is called "Hate Propaganda". Let's take a look at what the act defines "hate propaganda" as:
As you're not attempting to incite genocide against an identifiable group, your statement doesn't rise to the status of "hate propaganda".
That's a nice straw man you've built up there. Mind if I borrow him for my garden?
There is no logic to your position at all, because you've based your argument on a fallacy: your statement doesn't rise to the legal requirements for hate propaganda as set out in the act (not for the least of which because you didn't direct it at an identifiable group, where (quote) "identifiable group" means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.).
I've linked to the revelant section in the Criminal Code of Canada several times in this article. The section on Hate Propaganda isn't long -- take five or ten minutes to read it over before you go off half-cocked about "freedom" and "the government".
Yaz.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:5, Insightful)
After a short while I decided that it was pretty counter productive. The nazis wanted to be booted off Usenet so they could whine 'censorship'. Thats why Irving went to Austria, he wanted to be made a martyr, at least up to the point he went to prison when I think he got buyers remorse.
I did a piece on this on my blog [blogspot.com] if folk are interested in the origins of all this. The punchline being that censoring the net.nazis is like feeding trolls.
The modern holocaust denial movement only got started after the Canadians went after Zundel and Irving brought out 'hitler's war'. Most of the 'documents' that have circulated since were produced (i.e. fabricated) for that trial.
I don't think that any but the rawest, most naive recruits beleive a word of the holocaust denial crap, they love Hitler precisely because they know it is all true. The whole point in promoting it is to get censored.
Which raises an interesting question (Score:5, Interesting)
*For example, constitutional law in the UK is based on the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and the Parliamentary acts, none of which guarantee freedom of speech to the citizens
Re:Which raises an interesting question (Score:5, Informative)
The only thing that is really censored is hate speech (including Holcaust denial).
Re:Which raises an interesting question (Score:5, Insightful)
How is arguing a position the same as hate speech? If someone believes the Holcaust never happened, why can't they make that argument, show their facts, and show their logic.
What is better of the following 2 choices?
What is next? Will the people who wrote The Bell Curve go to jail for expressing ideas that most people disagree with? Will Rush Limbaugh be sentanced to prision for saying he thinks a black QB is given more chances to succeed than a white one?
There is a HUGE difference between expressing an idea and motivating other people to violence. There is a difference between writing "Black people unfairly steal admissions seats at the University of Michigan Law School" on the internet, and going to the University of Michigan and giving a speech in front of a mob to incite them to violence.
What will happen, if we let those with $$ decide what is true and false, is that anything they disagree with will become off-limits for debate.
I have always said that an open forum is the death (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nazis themselves were censored in 1925-1927, and yet during this time, their membership doubled. Clearly this censorship does nothing except remove "dangerous ideas" from the public forum and into private conversations where the public is denied a right of rebuttal.
As I understand it, holocaust denial is not a crime in the UK, nor is chanting outside the Danish Embassy "Denmark, USA, 7/7 on it's way" (though there is a movement in the UK to criminalize the latter if Blair gets his way). Yet it is in Canada? Why? What rational purpose can this serve? And how can one create a situation out of a law like that which can afford equal protection to all as required by the Constitutional Act?
In Soviet Russia... (not a joke) (Score:5, Funny)
Article 12. Supreme power in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic is exercised by the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, and in the intervals between Congresses by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee.
Article 13. In order to ensure genuine freedom of conscience for the working people, the church is separated from the State, and the school from the church: and freedom of religious and anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.
Article 14. In order to ensure genuine freedom of expression for the working people, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic abolishes the dependence of the press on capital, and places at the disposal of the working class and the poor peasantry all the technical and material requisites for the publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books and all other printed matter, and guarantees their unhindered circulation throughout the country.
Article 15. In order to ensure genuine freedom of assembly for the working people, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, recognizing the right of citizens of the Soviet Republic freely to hold assemblies, meetings, processions, etc., places at the disposal of the working class and the poor peasantry all buildings suitable for the holding of public gatherings, complete with furnishing, lighting and heating.
Re:Which raises an interesting question (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, one man's "hate speech" might be another man's social commentary. This is particularly true in the case of unflattering statistics about certain ethnic groups.
Second, the level of freedom of speech in a given society has to be measured by the ability to say the most unpopular things you can think of. Societies don't censor people's ability to say "I like flowers."
Third, it is important to let people with stupid ideas actually proclaim them in public so that they might be corrected in their errors. Let both sides have their say and let the free market of ideas decide.
Fourth, by banning "hate speech" you are putting in place the mechanism for yet another holocaust. Part of the reason Hilter was so successful in his campaign was his ability to suppress information. All one has to do is redefine "hate speech" to mean "anything dangerous to those currently in power. Now they can censor their opponents as hateful "anti-canadians".
Re:From the Charter (Score:4, Interesting)
(1) http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554 [rsf.org]& year=2005 [freedomhouse.org]
(2) http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=204
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose if you later try to "fucking kill" an entity, it might be evidence of forethought and premeditation...
Flamebait (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot has a policy of not filtering its comments, they leave it up to the moderators to sort it out. But even though most off-color/hate comments are modded down, they still appear if you browse at -1. Any thoughts?
Class action against Slashdot! (Score:4, Funny)
whos the boss? (Score:5, Interesting)
a few years back colorado made not wearing your seatbelt a secondary offense, you couldnt get pulled over for it. they recently passed a law to allow officers to pull a person over for not wearing a seatbelt. i know slippery slope is a logical fallacy, but it happens...
Common carrier (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Common carrier (Score:5, Interesting)
If ISPs were common carriers, the current controversy over a "tiered" Internet structure would be moot. Common carriers, by definition, cannot discriminate based on the content of the information being transmitted. Giving priority to particular types of data, or data sent by particular providers (e.g., Google), would be clearly illegal in a common carrier regime.
Congress and the FCC distinguish between "telecommunications" services, which are usually covered by common carrier regulation, and "information" services which are not. These issues were generally resolved in the late 1990's in the context of payments by common carriers to the universal service fund which helps cover the cost of delivering telecom services to rural and other underserved areas. ISPs didn't want to make these payments (even if they were providing VOIP) and were successful in getting Congress to treat them as "information services." http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Re
Perhaps you were thinking about the section of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that exempted ISPs if the material they hosted infringed copyrights
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/
There's nothing in this provision that applies common carrier regulation to ISPs.
My understanding of the current state of ISP regulation is that, as private entities, they can refuse to host anything they dislike. However, unlike Canada, if the Federal government were to require the removal of content it found distasteful, the government would lose on First Amendment grounds. (I don't know whether this applies to state governments, though I'd guess that it does.)
Rights... (Score:5, Insightful)
Free Speech includes even when it's Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's a FACT, or it's RIGHT. More times than not, it means the opposite.
My love for Canada just dropped massively (Score:5, Interesting)
Official Website (Score:3, Interesting)
I can understand discrimination, but is free speech discrimination? Does having a website calling for hate and attacks against Jews, Blacks, and Muslims, count as discrimination? I'm not sure it does. I'm all for Human Rights. But I'm not for censorship--especially when the government might find ME to be the one discriminating.
FreeSpeech rules? (Score:3, Interesting)
The only speech that NEEDS protection is offensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Love'm, hate'm love'm hate'm... (Score:3, Insightful)
ISP shafted? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think this case is a precendent-setting as the original post makes out.
Re:ISP shafted? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Canary in the coal mine (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is protecting the rights of idiot white surpremacists important? Because they are the canary in the coal mine. When the rights of the unpopular are abridged, everyone's rights are in danger.
Univeral freedom of speech helps ensure the health of society. When unpleasant ideas and beliefs are expressed, it acts as a sort of innoculation against them. When these ideas are oppressed and only shared in secret, they tend to grow like a cancer beneath the surface of society, unknown and unchecked.
When universal freedom of speech is attacked and undermined, it sets the stage for further abuses. Just look at China. Is that what the people of Canada want for their children and grandchildren? Which is worse, living in a totalitarian regime, or living in a free society where you are sometimes subjected to ideas you do not agree with and find offensive?
The only effective means of thought control is information control, but don't take my word for it. Here's a quote from someone whose mastery of propaganda and its uses is unquestioned:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945
Abridging the rights of the unpopular is the first dangerous step towards the kind of world Goebbels lived in. Not only that but it serves no useful purpose even in the short run. Making neo-nazi's be quiet doesn't make them go away. All it does is ensure that their activities and efforts at recruitment are that much more difficult to detect.
You would think that people would know better, but then 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
The actual law, in case you're concerned (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the Canadian Criminal code [justice.gc.ca]. Search on "Hate Propaganda". Here's the relevant parts.
Seems pretty clear and reasonable so far. We can't advocate the extermination of any identifiable segment of our population, and we can't incite hatred against a group if, in the authorities judgement, it is likely to cause a "breach of peace". In other words, it recognizes that speech that incites violence does not deserve the same protections as speech that doesn't. Further, the law explictly states a number of defenses against this law. Use any of these and you can incite all the hatred you want.
This, to you, warrants a warning to us poor Canadians to avoid a future where our grandchildren are as free as they would be in Red China?
It's particularly rich coming from an American. Right now you guys are far closer to totalitarianism than Canada will ever be in a hundred thousand lifetimes. You've got the Homeland Gestapo interrogating people due to their choice of T-shirts or library books. You've got a president and attourney general who equate questions and dissent with giving "aid and comfort" to terorrists. You have a labour system where, for voicing your true opinion to your boss, you can lose your children's health coverage.
I think you've got much greater problems to take care of at home before you concern yourself much with us poor Canadians. Don't worry about us, we're living a lot more freely than you.
Hate Crime Laws are Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just wrong. Like the money laundering laws. They were meant with good intent but are now fraught with loopholes and gotchas and they hurt more innocent people than they ever help.
The problem with all this is where do you draw the line? These laws become tools to advance a prosecutor's career, rather than deterring or punishing crimes. These are the laws they hit you with when they need to "make an example" out of you.
cough cough (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate speech in Canada is only when it incites people to commit violence against the said group being hated.
It's legal in canada to say "I hate all $GROUP" as long as you don't say "kill $GROUP".
Tom
Freedom of Speach (Score:5, Insightful)
Slow down there cowboys... (Score:5, Informative)
Whoa -- can everyone slow down for a second and take a look at the facts?
From http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971 358637177&c=Article&cid=1142031016503 [thestar.com]:
In essence, the /. summary is not telling the whole story. This isn't a case of some corporate ISP where some customer happened to be running a hate site getting fined. In this case the ISP owner was providing the content, and not just hosting it.
Additionally, it wasn;t the ISP that was fined -- it was the people who created the illegal content, one of whom happens to own the web service provider in question.
You can't just start an ISP in order to avoid hate speech laws. The /. summary is highly misleading in this case, so please get off your high-horses and take a look at the facts before starting yet another rant, okay?
Yaz.
Re:Slow down there cowboys... (Score:4, Informative)
You have the wrong idea about Canada's hate speech laws. Here's wher eyou can read up on them yourself:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/181181.html#rid- 181219 [justice.gc.ca]
In brief:
So there you have it. You can stand up and saw "I hate ${IDENTIFIABLE_GROUP}" all you want in Canada. But you can't incite others to actively hate another group, or to perpetrate violence towards another group. It's simple, and staright forward, and doesn't prevent you from hating whomever you want to hate, or from telling other people you hate said group. You simply can't use it to incite others to hate and violence against said group.
Yaz.
Canada Not! (Score:4, Insightful)
For the first time in Canada, an Internet service provider has been found guilty and fined for hosting websites that spread hate messages against blacks, Jews and Muslims.
I'll believe these enforcers of intolerance might even have some claim to fairness after they go after the hate speech on some of the Muslim websites with equal vigor. Yes there's white hate speech, which most of us simply avoid because it's not our cup of tea, but by no means in this world is that the only hate speech easy to locate on the Internet.
I'm waiting...