Time for action on online hate

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/11/2021 (1789 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A June 2019 report titled “Taking Action to End Online Hate,” from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, led by Anthony Housefather, unveiled a detailed plan for a digital charter to tackle misinformation and violent extremism online. This charter was to dictate how our country will combat hate speech, misinformation and online electoral interference in Canada.

Two years later, in June 2021, the Liberals introduced a bill to tackle online hate by amending Canada’s Criminal Code and Canadian Human Rights Act.

Bill C-36 would allow a person to appear before a provincial court, with the attorney general’s consent, if the person fears that another will commit an offence “motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor.”

When Parliament was dissolved in August to make way for a federal election, all business before the Senate and the House of Commons was brought to an end. This included Bill C-36.

Hate is defined in the bill as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than dislike or disdain,” but hatred is not incited solely because it “discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends.” In addition, the bill would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to make it a “discriminatory practice” to communicate hate speech through the internet, where it is “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

The echo chamber of social media is filled with hate and conspiracy theories. We know these exchanges can lead to extremism, including violence. Recent testimony by Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen alleged Facebook executives are well aware the platform amplifies hate and extremism. Experts studying extremism have noted websites and social media are creating easily accessible pathways that encourage extreme and hateful ideologies and radicalism.

Examples that come to mind are Robert Bower, the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter in Pittsburgh, and the 29-year-old Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who murdered 51 worshippers at two New Zealand mosques. In both these cases, the influence of extremist agitators exacerbated what began as staunch conservatism into violent white nationalism.

Closer to home, former Beausejour resident and army reservist Patrik Mathews, a recruiter and organizer for the neo-Nazi and white supremacy group the Base, was sentenced to nine years in a U.S. prison on charges of possessing a firearm while in the country illegally, illegal possession of a machine gun, possession of an unregistered machine gun and destroying a cellphone that was a part of a federal investigation.

Mathews wanted to start a “race war,” and his intended targets were Blacks and Jews, including children, and he made claims that interracial relationships should be punished with death. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) published a detailed interim report in 2020 on right-wing extremism in Canada. According to the study, (Mathews’) “arrest was part of a global pattern — acts of terrorism committed by the far-right have increased by 320 per cent over the past five years, supported by an increasingly connected and internationalist community of right-wing extremism,” and noting that the number of hate groups in Canada has tripled in recent years.

The ongoing study researched the scale of Canadian right-wing extremist activity across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, 4chan, Gab, Fascist Forge and Iron March. It found Canadians are highly active on forums associated with white supremacists, and identified five sub-groups of right-wing extremists: white supremacists, ethnonationalists, anti-Muslim groups, sovereigntists and militia groups, and the “manosphere,” which is anti-women.

Anti-Semitic neo-Nazi rhetoric was common to the above groups. (The study notes that anti-Muslim groups attempt to mask their racist views by publicly rejecting anti-Semitism). On Facebook. Muslims were the most common target of posts containing explicit hate speech, with anti-Semitism following closely behind.

It is especially important to note that online activity of these hate groups increased around the time of the attacks in Christchurch, Pittsburgh, Poway, Quebec and London. Without implementing the kinds of changes imagined in Bill C-36 — changes with “teeth” — the virus of online hate will continue to spread like a wildfire in a drought, and we are likely to continue to experience violence and tragedy in our midst.

Last June, Justice Minister David Lametti stated the bill would be reintroduced should the Liberals remain in power. It is crucial to fulfil that promise at this critical time.

Belle Jarniewski is the executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada. Since 2013, she has served on the federally appointed delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.