Expert: Canada鈥檚 new online harms bill听
The Liberal government is proposing heavier sentences, new regulatory bodies and changes to a number of laws in鈥痭ew legislation to tackle online abuse. The Online Harms Act proposes to police seven categories of harmful content online. Those categories include content used to bully a child and content that encourages a child to harm themselves. They also include hate speech, content that incites violence or terrorism, content that sexualizes children or victims of sexual violence, and sexual content that is posted without consent. ()听
Here is an expert from 海角社区 who can provide comment on this topic:听
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Ignacio Cofone, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law听
鈥淭he motivation and aims of the Online Harms Act are helpful. For example, the duty to act responsibly to minimize the risk of exposure to harmful content is productive in making a safer internet. The duty to make certain content inaccessible is helpful for victims of nonconsensual distribution of intimate images. But the bill should remove its criminal law provisions, as we don't have evidence that longer prison sentences lead to safer practices.鈥澨�
Ignacio Cofone is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law and the Canada Research Chair in AI Law and Data Governance.鈥疕is areas of expertise include artificial intelligence policy, information privacy, and human rights.听
ignacio.cofone [at] mcgill.ca鈥�(English, Italian, Spanish)鈥�
