The current election campaign brings back its share of threatening remarks against the candidates. The scourge of harmful language that is so easily disseminated online is not confined to politicians. In June, the Council for the Status of Women published a study documenting the phenomenon of online hostility that disproportionately targets women, especially those in positions of power or who intervene in public spaces.
The film I salute you bitch, by Léa Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist, exposes the deleterious consequences of harmful content online on the ability of women to participate in the life of the community. Several news outlets and journalistic organizations have written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other leaders to denounce the online harassment of journalists. Again, disproportionately, threats are directed at racialized journalists and women.
The scourge is documented: it is high time to take the means to face it and to name the postures which contribute to paralyze the effective actions to achieve it.
Obviously, measures are needed to strengthen digital literacy and better train citizens who are now equipped with powerful communication skills, comparable to those of the mainstream media. It comes with responsibilities. It is learned and must be learned. Those who choose to use the power of the network to commit attacks must answer for their actions.
To support the efforts that everyone should make, to give themselves the means to distinguish legitimate comments from insults or criminal threats, the risks associated with the dissemination of comments online must be made visible.
In the street or online, there are comments that are prohibited by law. This is the case with the dissemination of threats, harassment, racist, misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic remarks. Quebec law considers insult and the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images as wrongful acts that can lead to civil remedies. In Canada, laws can place limits on freedom of expression. But such limits must be justified and reasonable. There is no freedom to broadcast insults or threats.
But the extraordinary ease of massively disseminating the slightest image or the slightest insulting remark imposes changes in the application of the laws. There is an urgent need to improve the ability of police and judicial processes to identify and bring to justice those who spout insanity.
But since the meaning of words and images depends on their context, many of these rules are difficult to apply in an environment where information circulates very quickly. We need to improve the ability of the judiciary to quickly distinguish what is illegal from what is in bad taste.
Because the laws can only punish the comments that are clearly targeted. In a country that respects freedom of expression, you cannot legislate on good taste. Going after words that are declared “banned” does not advance the fight against real hatred and real harassment.
By claiming to punish the slightest statement that causes annoyance, we contribute to discrediting the processes by which we apply the laws targeting statements that are actually prohibited. Those who, in the name of a rudimentary vision of ” freedom », oppose the reinforcement of measures in order to fight against harmful remarks. have nothing to do with what is prohibited by law.
Platforms, including social networks, take advantage of the traffic generated by the abusive ramblings that some put online. Laws need to be upgraded to impose duties of care on them. But, short of installing them in the role of mega-censors, it is unrealistic to hold them a priori responsible for the comments of users like a newspaper or a broadcaster.
The trend that is beginning to emerge in the legislation of several democratic countries is rather to impose obligations on them to identify and manage the risks associated with the activities they authorize in their spaces. Business models consisting in generating profits by monetizing the number of clicks resulting from harmful online practices must be conditioned by obligations to seriously manage the risks that this entails for people.
It is true that certain words or images can upset. But laws can only punish speech that has demonstrable deleterious consequences. Freedom of expression must be reconciled with everyone’s right to dignity. If we really want to act on hostile behavior online, we must stop looking for a chimerical solution that would claim to make everything that annoys disappear.
To regain a connected space where everyone can express themselves without fear, measures are needed to effectively enforce the laws on obviously harmful words and to stay away from the hunt for taboo words.