Canada’s Liberals Try To Defend Plan To Target Anonymous Social Media Accounts

Canada’s ruling Liberals have found themselves accused of working against free press, as they continue their “war on misinformation.” This time, the Liberals were caught doing this during their party congress that saw attendance from members coming across the country, and one of the things they did was pass a resolution – albeit a non-binding one – regarding the need to tackle “online misinformation.” Not only are critically minded observers interpreting this as yet another danger likely to be faced by the free press, but how the document was adopted was also not particularly democratic in nature – the vote took place with no prior debate. And it was on a Saturday morning that this “slipped through” and made it into the convention’s documents, albeit with only a couple of dozen party delegates present and willing to vote. However – non-binding or otherwise, the intent is clearly there, and now the fear is that the government will find a way to work it into its policy with the aim of increasing control over Canadian media. For the moment, the facts are that the resolution calls for “exploring options” (a habitually broad wording of initiatives of this sort) that would result in the accountability of internet services for the content they publish. And, importantly – also exploring options – as to how to “limit” that content from being published on the services’ platforms, but no less importantly, “limit” that content “only to material whose sources can be traced.” It wasn’t long…Canada’s Liberals Try To Defend Plan To Target Anonymous Social Media Accounts