No hypocrisy on Internet


Posted on March 16, 2013  /  2 Comments

Ron Diebert is a friend and colleague. He gets his hands dirty looking at what actually happens on the Internet. And he thinks all governments have to rethink the way they approach Internet security.

“I think Canada, like many liberal, democratic countries, is caught in a bit of a contradiction,” said Diebert, director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the University of Toronto.

“We can’t accuse other countries of violating people’s human rights when there is no protection in our own country when it comes to law enforcement accessing data through Internet service providers.”

Last month, Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the controversial Bill C-30, known as the online surveillance or warrantless wiretapping bill, would not go ahead.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Canada+hypocritical+Internet+freedom+says+expert/8100965/story.html#ixzz2Nivohn7K

2 Comments


  1. Hi, Has been a fan of your son’s writing for a while and since recent yours. This is a somewhat related but more specific question. What is the best way for someone to formally report the current trend of racial hate speech on the internet? Is there a way to do this online to SL authorities without having to either write formal letters or physically going there? I refer to pages such as this one – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-Our-Sri-Lanka/138105763012503

    Thanks,
    Thilan.

  2. I do not support hate-speech regulation. There is no easy way to define hate speech. Banning an undefinable thing places us on the slippery slope to censorship.

    Each community must act to “ban” what it considers hate speech. The recent unfriending of people making anti-Muslim Facebook posts is the kind of thing I would support. Here is a group addressing hate speech issues: http://www.internetdemocracy.in/tag/internet-governance/