Consultation closed: The Government’s proposed approach to address harmful content online

Social media platforms and other online communications services play a vital and important role in Canada’s society and economy. However, despite their many benefits, they can be abused and used to incite hate, promote violence and extremism or for other illegal activity.

The Government of Canada is committed to taking meaningful action to combat hate speech and other kinds of harmful content online, including child sexual exploitation content, terrorist content, content that incites violence, and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. The Government is asking for written submissions from Canadians on its proposed approach to make social media platforms and other online communications services more accountable and more transparent when it comes to combating harmful content online.

About the proposed approach

The Government proposes a new legislative and regulatory framework that would create rules for how social media platforms and other online services must address harmful content. The framework sets out:

• which entities would be subject to the new rules;
• what types of harmful content would be regulated;
• new rules and obligations for regulated entities; and
• two new regulatory bodies and an Advisory Board to administer and oversee the new framework and enforce its rules and obligations.

How to participate

Two documents are presented:

1. A discussion guide that summarizes and outlines the Government’s overall approach.
2. A technical paper that summarizes the proposed instructions to inform the upcoming legislation.

Both documents are presented with thematic modules. Each module outlines a component of the Government’s proposed approach.

This consultation ran from July 27 to September 25, 2021 and is now closed.

Contact us

Digital Citizen Initiative
Department of Canadian Heritage
25 Eddy St
Gatineau QC  K1A 0S5

Email

pch.icn-dci.pch@canada.ca

Telephone

819-997-0055
1-866-811-0055 (toll-free)

TTY

1-888-997-3123 (toll free)
Agents are available to answer your questions Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 5:30 pm (ET).