Freedom of Speech
Governor General Mary Simon, who serves as Canada’s official non-partisan head of state and representative of King Charles III, has taken heat for hosting a conference supporting a new federal government bill that could lead to large fines or jail time for vaguely defined online “hate speech” infractions.
On April 11, Simon hosted an event titled “The Governor General’s Symposium: Building a Safe and Respectful Digital World” at her Rideau Hall residence, with the goal to “bring together individuals who experience online violence and experts from across the country to share their experiences, explore solutions, and create allyship and networks of resilience.”
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Read MoreDemocracy Now! speaks with two of the Google employees who were arrested staging sit-ins on Tuesday at the company’s offices in New York City and in Sunnyvale, California, to protest the tech giant’s work with the Israeli government. Organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid, the protesters are demanding Google withdraw from Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli military. “Google execs basically chose to arrest workers for speaking out against the use of our technology to power the first AI-powered genocide,” says Google software engineer Mohammad Khatami, who was arrested in New York. Google worker-organizer Ray Westrick, who was arrested occupying CEO Thomas Kurian’s office, says “more people are willing to organize and risk their jobs in order to take a stand against complicity in genocide.” We also speak with No Tech for Apartheid organizer and former Google worker Gabriel Schubiner, who calls on the tech industry to divest from Google and Amazon services. “Technology workers actually have a lot of power to shift this paradigm and to remove technology from this deep complicity with the Israeli occupation,” Schubiner says.
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Read MoreThe United States government wanted a so-called “backdoor” in to Telegram to potentially spy on its users, according to the messaging app’s founder.
Pavel Durov, who launched Telegram in 2013 and currently serves as its CEO, made the claim during an interview with Tucker Carlson that aired on Tuesday night.
“Backdoor” is a term for a method used to bypass authorization in order to access protected data.
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Read MoreA government-sponsored agency is censoring journalism
“Our team re-reviewed the domain, the rating will not change as it continues to have anti-LGBTQI+ narratives… The site authors have been called out for being anti-trans. Kathleen Stock is acknowledged as a ‘prominent gender-critical’ feminist.”
This was part of an email sent to UnHerd at the start of January from an organisation called the Global Disinformation Index. It was their justification, handed down after a series of requests, for placing UnHerd on a so-called “dynamic exclusion list” of publications that supposedly promote “disinformation” and should therefore be boycotted by all advertisers.
They provided examples of the offending content: Kathleen Stock, whose columns are up for a National Press Award this week, Julie Bindel, a lifelong campaigner against violence against women, and Debbie Hayton, who is transgender. Apparently the GDI equates “gender-critical” beliefs, or maintaining that biological sex differences exist, with “disinformation” — despite the fact that those beliefs are specifically protected in British law and held by the majority of the population.
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Read MoreCanada is the butt of yet another international joke after Bill Maher roasted the nation in an eight-minute segment on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this weekend.
The HBO segment began with Maher taking shots at American liberals who often cite countries such as Canada, England and Scandinavia as “beacons of progressivism.” He then continued for more than five minutes demonstrating with stats how far Canada has fallen.
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Read MoreRideau Hall yesterday had no comment after Governor General Mary Simon personally hosted a conference in support of a bill before Parliament, C-63 An Act To Enact The Online Harms Act. The guest list was limited to Attorney General Arif Virani and supporters of internet regulation.
“The Governor General is non-partisan and apolitical,” Rideau Hall said in a statement Roles And Responsibilities. However no Opposition members or critics of Bill C-63 were invited to the April 11 conference.
Rideau Hall would not name all invitees, disclose why others were excluded or justify the pro-government event. It also declined to release any video or audio recordings of the meeting or a transcript of speakers’ remarks
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Read MoreCabinet’s 2022 use of emergency powers against Freedom Convoy protestors cost the Department of Public Safety more than $73 million, new records show. Expenses were not finalized.
“Cost associated with fiscal year 2023-2024 are still to be determined,” the department wrote in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons. The cost to date of $73,550,568 was tabled at the request of Conservative MP Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning) who asked, “With regard to enactment of the Emergencies Act in 2022, what was the cost burden for the government?”
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Read MorePro-Palestine protesters shut down the Golden Gate bridge as part of a global day of action over Israel’s war on Gaza, which also saw key economic sites blockaded in cities across the world.
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Read MoreAmidst escalating tensions, X responds to a US House subpoena, spotlighting its standoff with Brazilian censorship demands.
More details are emerging in the ongoing feud between X and its owner Elon Musk and Brazilian authorities over the latter’s censorship policies – a public dispute in which the US House of Representatives is now formally involved.
X has been subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee regarding censorship orders the company has been getting from Brazil, and the X Global Government Affairs announced that the company has complied with the request.
“X Corp. has been formally subpoenaed by the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee to provide information on orders from the Brazilian Supreme Court regarding content moderation. To comply with its obligations under US law, X Corp. has responded to the Committee,” the post reads.
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