Monday, September 15, 2008

CHRC to hold bloggers accountable for comments posted!

In disturbing news at the National Post, the CHRC are arguing that anyone running a site or a blog are 100% responsible for any comments that are posted there.

Anyone who runs an online message board, from the lowliest vanity blogger to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, can be charged under federal human rights law if visitors to their site post hateful comments, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

In final submissions this morning at the hate speech hearing of Marc Lemire, operator of the far-right freedomsite.org and a prominent figure in Canada's "white rights" movement, CHRC lawyer Margot Blight said there is no "free pass" for the website owners.

"If a message board owner can't manage to ensure the content of the message board is complying with Canadian law, then the message board should not be operating," she said.


This has absolutely gone too far. We bloggers cannot and should not be held responsible for comments that may subject some visible group to hatred or contempt.

This is a slippery slope. What is next, attacking the ISPs for allowing hate messages to be transmitted via their networks?

We bloggers need to stand up and let our voices be heard that this sort of facism will not be tolerated. Regardless of freedom of speech arguments, this is tantamount to censorship. The only way to enforce this is for every single blogger to moderate every single comment. This will stifle free speech in ways that I cannot even imagine.

This will result in message boards being taken down across the nation as even the MSM will not want to run the risk on this as even postings that appear briefly before being taken down can be used to persecute the operator of the message board.

Even the person hearing the case on behalf of the CHRC has serious doubts about this:
Athanasios Hadjis, who is hearing the case on behalf of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, questioned whether this applies even to messages that appear briefly, and without the owners knowledge or consent. He used the example of the CBC, which operates several chat forums for readers to discuss news stories, and asked what would happen if a hateful message somehow got past automatic filters and live editors.

He alluded to allegations that CHRC investigators themselves have even posted controversial comments to gain the trust of the operators of target websites.

"Suppose it's a fine line, and the operator has a nice disclaimer at the beginning... and then someone goes and crosses that line, and that someone may be who knows who. Is that fair to the message board operator?" Mr. Hadjis said.

Without commenting on the CBC directly, Ms. Blight [CHRC lawyer] said there is no "free pass" for anyone.


Let us hope this doesn't come to fruition.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy crap! Have you read some of the comments they let through at the CBC and G&M? They'd be shut down in a minute, unless of course hatred against conservatives is considered OK.

KURSK said...

the CHRC now wants control of the venues that have done the most damage to them in exposing their corrupt ways.

The social engineers running these kangaroo courts are feeling the heat, and are looking to control the message and the process by which they do business.

Anonymous said...

Excellent - the Garth Turner will be sued up the ying yang for all of his slurs, lies, truth twistings, innuendo ... and also for the comments he allows on his blog.

Anonymous said...

I going to post a hateful message. I hate the CHRC and I hate their provincial clones. They do not understand what free speech is and how important it is to democracy. These peddlers of censorship need to fired. Lock, stock and barrel.

Anonymous said...

The worse the better.

Anonymous said...

So who wants to be the first to complain about Garth, CC, and all the other hateful lefties? I think we can jam up the CHRC for a year just with them!

AnonymousCoward said...

Heh, funny.

But we wouldn't do that.

AnonymousCoward said...

Hatred against conservatives is not hate speech, its the truth. At least according to the CHRC I am sure :)

Anonymous said...

The more I think about it the angrier I get and I think it's time we DO use their own weapons against them. Yes we don't want to legitimize the HRC's but they're going to continue to be used by lefty and jihadist rabble-rousers without any fear of reprisal.

I think if the CHRC suddenly got a flood of 1000 complaints against their leftist masters they might realize that the knife is sharp on both sides...

Anonymous said...

I think all the Nmukis should be sent back to where they came from. That goes for the Washinis also. They smell.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Wow.

So, are we going to take this, or is it time to get rid of the CHRC?

AnonymousCoward said...

We should lobby our MPs or candidates to get rid of this abomination of an institution.

Anonymous said...

anonymous said: "Why this now when conservatives are gaining strength in this country?"

You just answered your own question. It's BECAUSE conservatives are gaining strength that the lib-left crowd is getting scared. The CHRC lashing out at anything and everything that they find (personally) disagreable is just one aspect of that ideological battle being fought.