LILLEY: Yes, the CRTC’s podcast registry could lead to censorship
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Bill C-11 gave the CRTC sweeping powers to regulate the online world, expect them to dig deep.
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Published Oct 02, 2023 • Last updated 16 hours ago • 3 minute read
A person navigates to the on-line social-media pages of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on a cell phone in Ottawa on May 17, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
The CRTC, Canada’s broadcast regulator, is demanding that companies offering podcasts or social media services in Canada register with the government by Nov. 28.
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This has led to claims that the Trudeau government, through the CRTC, is trying to impose censorship through internet regulation.
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Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Tesla, SpaceX and X.com — formerly known as Twitter — certainly sees it that way.
“Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada. Shameful,” Musk posted to X.
Is it really true that this podcast registry could lead to government censorship online?
While that isn’t the government’s stated goal, the legislation that brought this policy into play is so broad and relies so much on regulations to be written and enforced by the CRTC that it could easily happen. What’s more worrisome in the meantime is what the CRTC plans to do in regulating the online world with new rules and new fees.
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Could this shut down some content producers? Absolutely, it could.
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Don’t worry, supporters of this policy claim; there’s nothing to worry about, it’s not about individual podcasters — it’s only companies earning more than $10 million per year. The players making more than $10 million per year are the platforms that content producers like me and millions of others rely on to get our message out to the public.
Saying you won’t regulate an individual podcaster, just the platforms they stream on, is like saying you won’t regulate individual drivers, just the highways they drive on.
The result is the same.
Any rules imposed by the CRTC on the streaming services will in turn apply to the producers who use those services. The CRTC is also considering whether to impose fees on these streamers, which means they will find their way to the individual creator in the end.
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The fact that the CRTC doesn’t see any of this is further proof that this is a body that doesn’t understand the online world and shouldn’t be in charge of regulating it in any way.
The CRTC is an aging relic that can barely understand the changing dynamics of traditional broadcasting. How can the federal authority understand and be charged with regulating the internet without screwing it up?
Have you been on their website?
The CRTC’s website looks like it was designed in the Netscape Navigator era by a student with a dial-up modem. It operates just as well as a website from that era, but don’t worry, they can do the job before them.
CRTC CEO Vicky Eatrides has no experience with the industries she regulates, she’s a lawyer and career bureaucrat who has had stints at Natural Resources Canada, and the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development before a long stint at the Competition Bureau. This isn’t the resume of someone who knows the intricacies of broadcasting or the online world that she is now charged with regulating.
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Eatrides knows how to regulate, how to invent infective rules like the ones in place at the Competition Bureau. There is nothing in her background to indicate she knows how to innovate.
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The traditional broadcasting sector is going through an incredibly painful transition phase. The online platforms that are replacing traditional broadcasters are moving at breakneck speeds, with innovation that offers opportunities.
And into this walks the CRTC and a bunch of career bureaucrats who only know how to set and follow rules.
The podcast registry the CRTC is now demanding as a result of the Online Streaming Act, or Bill C-11, is a horrible idea and it will lead to more horrible ideas, including the quite likely possibility of censorship down the road.
Sadly, though, it won’t be the worst idea to come out of C-11.
I fear the worst is yet to come.
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