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Online harms bill: What to know about new bill coming – CTV News

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Years in the making, the federal government is poised to introduce a new piece of legislation on Monday aimed at addressing a series of online harms.

The bill will have a significant focus on protecting children with specific obligations for platforms, according to a senior government source who was not authorized to speak publicly about details yet to be made public.

It will also seek to address non-consensual AI porn deepfakes, though the legislation is not expected to provide law enforcement with new powers, the source said.

Put on the notice paper for Monday’s return to the House of Commons, the bill proposes to enact the “Online Harms Act” and advance amendments to the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act, as well as laws regarding the mandatory reporting of internet child pornography.

This is not the first time the Liberals have tried to advance legislation to this effect, but after experts panned the first proposal as flawed, the government went back to the drawing board to reshape its plans amid an evolving online environment.

Government officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Department of Justice will hold a technical briefing for reporters on Monday afternoon, followed by a press conference led by Justice Minister Arif Virani at 5:15 p.m. ET, according to a media advisory. 

Ahead of the bill’s tabling, here’s what you need to know.

What online harms will be included?

While the full scope of the legislation won’t be revealed until it is made public upon tabling in the House of Commons, it is expected to be an evolved version of the Liberals’ initial proposal, to include an emphasis on harms to youth.

Originally, the government set out wanting to impose rules and regulations that would require online platforms to be more accountable for, and transparent about five kinds of harmful content: hate speech, terrorist content, incitement to violence, the sharing of non-consensual images, and child exploitation.

In addition to these areas of focus, according to the senior source CTV News spoke with, concerns were also raised during consultations about kids experiencing cyberbullying and inciting self-harm. Those two areas are expected to be addressed through this legislation.

Part of the legislation’s measures to tackle the non-consensual sharing of intimate images will include cracking down on the rising trend of sexually explicit deepfakes, and allowing for specific takedown requirements of what’s become known as “revenge porn,” as has been reported.

The source said despite the recent calls for action to address this area, sparked by international headlines related to fake images circulating of mega star Taylor Swift, the government has been working on legislative amendments to this effect, for some time.

Which minister is taking the lead?

While this file has been in the hands of successive ministers of heritage, and the Canadian Heritage department, Virani will be taking the lead on the incoming bill, rather than Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge.

Earlier this week, Virani was quietly sworn-in as “Minister of State (Online Harms)” specifically “to assist the Minister of Canadian Heritage in the carrying out that minister’s responsibilities.”

This, from a machinery of government perspective, is likely to allow the justice minister to continue to tap into Canadian Heritage departmental resources as the bill winds its way through Parliament.

Before being shuffled into the portfolio, St-Onge spoke to CTV News last year about how she’s personally seen the need for legislation to better protect people online.

It remains to be seen how the two ministers will collaborate on shepherding the legislation through the House and Senate, which will include fielding parliamentarians’ questions, and potentially testifying at committee.

What’s the backstory on this bill?

This bill originated with a 2019 mandate letter request from the prime minister to then-heritage minister Steven Guilbeault to: “Create new regulations for social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content.”

Under his time heading the file, this resulted in two main actions. First, the introduction of what was known as Bill C-36, which was tabled at the eleventh hour of the last Parliament and focused on hate speech. It died on the order paper and has never been revisited.

The second move came two weeks before Trudeau called the 2021 election, when the government presented a “technical discussion paper” on a proposed legislative framework to tackle five forms of harmful online content.

Among the ideas floated in the government’s initial proposal were implementing a 24-hour takedown requirement for content deemed harmful; compelling platforms to provide data on their algorithms and provide a rationale for when action is taken on flagged posts; and installing a new system for Canadians to appeal platforms’ decisions around content moderation.

After facing significant pushback to this discussion paper, during the 2021 campaign, the Liberals promised to move on a “balanced and targeted” online harms bill within 100 days of the last election. After the vote, Pablo Rodriguez took over the portfolio and went back to the drawing board.

This reworking included tapping a panel of experts and specialists in platform governance, content regulation, civil liberties, tech regulation, and national security to help guide the government on what the bill should and shouldn’t include. 

In the summer of 2022, Rodriguez and top officials from his department travelled across the country to hold panel discussions with stakeholders and representatives from minority groups. As of then, sources were expressing optimism that the bill would be ready for early 2023.

Months later and still no legislation in sight, experts that helped craft the bill penned an open letter indicating that after soliciting successive forms of consultation, it was time for legislation to be brought forward, noting the lacking protections for Canadian kids compared to other countries with similar laws already in place.

Will this be a political hot potato?

If the exchange of jabs between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this week are any indication, this legislation has the potential of becoming a lightning rod.

Heading into the tabling of this bill after two previous rounds of highly contentious debates around their online news and online streaming bills, the government is mindful of the potential for an even bigger fight when it comes to online harms.

Already attempting to dispel the Conservative line of attack that this bill is centrally about censorship, Trudeau told reporters this week that the legislation will be “very specifically focused on protecting kids and not on censoring the internet.”

“We know, and everyone can agree that kids are vulnerable online… We need to do a better job as a society of protecting our kids online, the way we protect them in school yards,” Trudeau said. “Now how to go about that is a very careful balance.”

This came in response to Poilievre prepositioning his party as opposed to what he called the “latest attack on freedom of expression,” from the prime minister, who he accused of viewing hate speech as “speech he hates.”

Noting Poilievre has yet to see the legislation, the prime minister said his approach was not responsible.

“Leadership is about dealing in facts, actually reading a piece of legislation before he starts telling people what he thinks it does, and then having a rigorous debate in Parliament,” Trudeau said.

The prime minister also recently pushed back at NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who linked the October 2023 death of a 12-year-old boy in British Columbia who died by suicide after being a victim of online sextortion, with the Liberals’ delayed action on the online harms legislation.

Both Singh and Poilievre have put their support behind a separate but potentially conflicting piece of legislation from the Senate that would require age verification online to access explicit sites like Pornhub.

The Liberals are opposed to what is known as Bill S-210, with the source CTV News spoke indicating that Virani’s legislation will take a more overarching approach to protections for minors across online sites.

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Abortion rights advocates win in 7 states and clear way to overturn Missouri ban but lose in 3

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in Missouri cleared the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in one of seven victories for abortion rights advocates, while Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.

Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.

The results include firsts for the abortion landscape, which underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.

They also came in the same election that Republican Donald Trump won the presidency. Among his inconsistent positions on abortion has been an insistence that it’s an issue best left to the states. Still, the president can have a major impact on abortion policy through executive action.

In the meantime, Missouri is positioned to be the first state where a vote will undo a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with an amendment that would allow lawmakers to restrict abortions only past the point of a fetus’ viability — usually considered after 21 weeks, although there’s no exact defined time frame.

But the ban, and other restrictive laws, are not automatically repealed. Advocates now have to ask courts to overturn laws to square with the new amendment.

“Today, Missourians made history and sent a clear message: decisions around pregnancy, including abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care are personal and private and should be left up to patients and their families, not politicians,” Rachel Sweet, campaign manager of Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said in a statement.

Roughly half of Missouri’s voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 2,200 of the state’s voters. But only about 1 in 10 said abortion should be illegal in all cases; nearly 4 in 10 said abortion should be illegal in most cases.

Bans remain in place in three states after votes

Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota became the first states since Roe was overturned where abortion opponents prevailed on a ballot measure. Most voters supported the Florida measure, but it fell short of the required 60% to pass constitutional amendments in the state. Most states require a simple majority.

The result was a political win for Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican with a national profile, who had steered state GOP funds to the cause. His administration has weighed in, too, with a campaign against the measure, investigators questioning people who signed petitions to add it to the ballot and threats to TV stations that aired one commercial supporting it.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the national anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, said in a statement that the result is “a momentous victory for life in Florida and for our entire country,” praising DeSantis for leading the charge against the measure.

The defeat makes permanent a shift in the Southern abortion landscape that began when the state’s six-week ban took effect in May. That removed Florida as a destination for abortion for many women from nearby states with deeper bans and also led to far more women from the state traveling to obtain abortion. The nearest states with looser restrictions are North Carolina and Virginia — hundreds of miles away.

“The reality is because of Florida’s constitution a minority of Florida voters have decided Amendment 4 will not be adopted,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for the Yes on 4 Campaign said while wiping away tears. “The reality is a majority of Floridians just voted to end Florida’s abortion ban.”

In South Dakota, another state with a ban on abortion throughout pregnancy with some exceptions, the defeat of an abortion measure was more decisive. It would have allowed some regulations related to the health of the woman after 12 weeks. Because of that wrinkle, most national abortion-rights groups did not support it.

Voters in Nebraska adopted a measure that allows more abortion restrictions and enshrines the state’s current 12-week ban and rejected a competing measure that would have ensured abortion rights.

Other states guaranteed abortion rights

Arizona’s amendment will mean replacing the current law that bans abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The new measure ensures abortion access until viability. A ballot measure there gained momentum after a state Supreme Court ruling in April found that the state could enforce a strict abortion ban adopted in 1864. Some GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats to repeal the law before it could be enforced.

In Maryland, the abortion rights amendment is a legal change that won’t make an immediate difference to abortion access in a state that already allows it.

It’s a similar situation in Montana, where abortion is already legal until viability.

The Colorado measure exceeded the 55% of support required to pass. Besides enshrining access, it also undoes an earlier amendment that barred using state and local government funding for abortion, opening the possibility of state Medicaid and government employee insurance plans covering care.

A New York equal rights law that abortion rights group say will bolster abortion rights also passed. It doesn’t contain the word “abortion” but rather bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” Sasha Ahuja, campaign director of New Yorkers for Equal Rights, called the result “a monumental victory for all New Yorkers” and a vote against opponents who she says used misleading parental rights and anti-trans messages to thwart the measure.

The results end a win streak for abortion-rights advocates

Until Tuesday, abortion rights advocates had prevailed on all seven measures that have appeared on statewide ballots since the fall of Roe.

The abortion rights campaigns have a big fundraising advantage this year. Their opponents’ efforts are focused on portraying the amendments as too extreme rather than abortion as immoral.

Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Four more bar abortion in most cases after about six weeks of pregnancy — before women often realize they’re pregnant. Despite the bans, the number of monthly abortions in the U.S. has risen slightly, because of the growing use of abortion pills and organized efforts to help women travel for abortion. Still, advocates say the bans have reduced access, especially for lower-income and minority residents of the states with bans.

The issue is resonating with voters. About one-fourth said abortion policy was the single most important factor for their vote, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide. Close to half said it was an important factor, but not the most important. Just over 1 in 10 said it was a minor factor.

The outcomes of ballot initiatives that sought to overturn strict abortion bans in Florida and Missouri were very important to a majority of voters in the states. More than half of Florida voters identified the result of the amendment as very important, while roughly 6 in 10 of Missouri’s voters said the same, the survey found.

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Associated Press reporters Hannah Fingerhut and Amanda Seitz contributed to this article.

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This article has been corrected to reflect in the ‘other states’ section that Montana, not Missouri, currently allows abortion until viability.



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South Korea fights deepfake porn with tougher punishment and regulation

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea on Wednesday announced a package of steps to curb a surge in deepfake porn, saying it will toughen punishment for offenders, expand the use of undercover officers and impose greater regulations on social media platforms.

Concerns about nonconsensual explicit video contents that were digitally manipulated deepened in South Korea after unconfirmed lists of schools with victims spread online in August. Terrified, many girls and women removed photos and videos from Instagram, Facebook and other social media accounts, while others held rallies calling for stronger steps against deepfake porn.

President Yoon Suk Yeol quickly confirmed the rapid spread of explicit deepfake contents and ordered officials to “root out these digital sexual crimes.” Police are now on a seven-month special crackdown that is to continue until March 2025.

A task force said in a statement that the government has been working with lawmakers on revising laws to increase punishment for perpetrators involved in deepfake porn-related crimes.

It cited a recently amended law that for the first time makes acts of watching or possessing deepfake porn illegal and punishable with up to three years in prison. The maximum punishment for those who produce or distribute deepfake porn contents was increased from five to seven years in prison.

Police have so far detained 506 suspects this year, 411 of them aged between 10 and 19.

The task force said it’ll push for undercover online investigations, even in cases when victims are adults. The law currently authorizes such methods only when victims are minors. The government also plans another revision that would allow authorities to confiscate profits made through deepfake porn businesses.

The task force said it will push to impose a fine on social media platforms more aggressively when they fail to prevent the spread of deepfake and other illegal contents. It said South Korea will plan to increase monitors on social media platforms to 26, from the current 12.

The task force will also expand mandatory educational programs on digital sex crimes at schools, and produce related public awareness videos with celebrities popular with teens and young people in their 20s.

Most suspected perpetrators in deepfake porn cases in South Korea are teenage boys. Observers say the boys target female friends, relatives and acquaintances — also mostly minors — as a prank, out of curiosity or misogyny.

The deepfake porn issue in South Korea has raised serious questions about school programs but also threatened to worsen an already troubled divide between men and women.

The prevalence of deepfake porn in the country has been attributed to a mix of factors, experts say, including heavy use of smartphones, an absence of comprehensive sex and human rights education in schools, inadequate social media regulations for minors, and also misogyny and social norms that sexually objectify women.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Tesla shares soar 14% as Trump win sets stage for Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company

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NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday following an election that will send Donald Trump back to the White House, an outcome that has been strongly backed by CEO Elon Musk in the closing months of the race.

Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration due to its size, with the expectation that subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles will be threatened.

While that would be a negative overall for the industry, it could give Tesla an advantage because of market share. Shares of rival electric vehicles sank sharply Wednesday.

Tesla shares jumped 14% at the opening bell.

Trump has proposed tariffs of 10% to 20% on foreign goods that would also impact electric vehicle maker’s outside the U.S., especially in China.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”

Shares of rival EV maker Rivian plunged 8% and Lucid Group fell 4%. China-based NIO slid 5.3%.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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