Michael Geist has been writing recently (here and here) about what he calls the government's "stunning, dangerous, and inexcusable decision to rescind legislative safeguards for user generated content in Bill C-10." He is objecting to the idea that "it is appropriate to regulate a new generation's form of speech – TikTok videos, Instagram posts, Facebook feeds, and YouTube videos – as if they are the equivalent of broadcast programs." They are not, of course, and I think cooler heads will prevail. Still, there is a widespread and not quiet sentiment in society as a whole that something needs to be done. That's what's fueling, for example, the British football and cricket associations' boycott of social media next week. The abuse, they argue reasonably, must end. Now I am a defender of free speech, but I fall into the broad school of thought (following Mill) that a person's right to free speech ends when it becomes an act, and not merely an expression of opinion. It doesn't help that copyright owners are stupidly trying to use the issue to pursue broad and punitive copyright enforcement. And subjecting social media to the full weight of broadcast law is a blunt instrument to use when something more precise is needed. But make no mistake: something is needed. Something that protects people, but that doesn't give governments and publishers a club to punish people for other imagined misdeeds.
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