News

Weekly Newsletter for February 22, 2023

February 23, 2023February 23, 2023 Bradley McNeil

Weekly News (February 22, 2023)

Compiled by Brad McNeil, Kyle Wyndham-West, and Beatrice Sunderland, with Sara Bannerman and Fenwick McKelvey

McMaster University, Communications Governance Observatory

(February 14 -February 21, 2023)

Canadian News

[BROADCAST POLICY/BILL C-11] Quebec National Assembly passes unanimous motion criticizing Bill C-11, demands 11th-hour change (The Globe and Mail)
[BROADCASTING POLICY/C-11] Le Parti conservateur appuie la demande de Québec pour un droit de regard (Le Presse)
[TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY] La nouvelle politique du CRTC désormais en vigueur (La Presse)
[MISINFORMATION] Social media fuelled the ‘Freedom Convoy,’ and 4 more findings you need to know from the Emergencies Act report (Toronto Star)
[COMPETITION/TELECOM OWNERSHIP] Deadline for Rogers, Shaw merger extended to March 31 (Financial Post)
[COMPETITION/TELECOM OWNERSHIP] How the Rogers-Shaw takeover deal made it past the Competition Tribunal (The Globe and Mail)
[COMPETITION / TELECOM OWNERSHIP] Globalive urges CRTC to suspend Rogers-Vidéotron wholesale deal (Financial Post)
[ISP OWNERSHIP] ‘The industry is in crisis:’ Another small internet provider sells to big telecom (Toronto Star)
[HARMFUL SPEECH/CENSORSHIP] Critics reject changes to Roald Dahl books as censorship (CTV News)
[CYBERSECURITY] Canada’s New York consulate made to deactivate TikTok account it had for nearly a year (National Post)
[CYBERSECURITY] CSIS documents show China warned ‘Canadian friends’ of foreign-interference investigations (The Globe and Mail)
[PRIVACY/ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE] Synthetic data puts privacy at the heart of AI projects (The Globe and Mail)
[PLATFORM GOVERNANCE/PRIVACY] Twitter just made an important safety feature subscriber-only. Here’s what it means for you (Toronto Star)
[ONLINE NEWS/BILL C-18] Opinion: Sen. Peter Harder: Passage of the Online News Act is urgent and essential for good journalism (National Post)
[BROADCASTING POLICY/C-11] Opinion: Rioux Soucy: C-11 et le Québec, un ver dans le fruit (Le Devoir)
[PLATFORM REGULATION] Opinion: Blayne Haggart: Tech world sees trust as a weakness not a glue (Toronto Star)
[ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE] Opinion: Abjun Gupta: Legal minefield awaits for businesses looking to use artificial intelligence (The Globe and Mail)
[COMPETITION POLICY] Opinion: Keldon Bester: A new golden age for competition and antitrust is taking hold – and Canada can be part of it
[JOURNALISM] Opinion: Robin V. Spears: Pierre Poilievre’s media-bashing foreshadows his approach to governing (Toronto Star)
[PUBLIC BROADCASTING] Opinion: Tristin Hopper: FIRST READING: Pierre Poilievre goes to war with the CBC (National Post)

International News

[PRIVACY / FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION] Supreme Court Turns Away Challenge to Warrantless Surveillance Program; Privacy groups have argued the program exposed by Edward Snowden is unconstitutional (Wall Street Journal)
[FREEDOM OF THE PRESS] Critics say India’s tax raid on BBC an attack on press freedom (The Globe and Mail)
[DISINFORMATION] Russian propagandists said to buy Twitter blue-check verifications (Washington Post)
[DISINFORMATION] How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying’ (The Guardian)
[BIOMETRIC DATA / PRIVACY] Illinois Supreme Court Allows Big Biometric Privacy Fines (Bloomberg Law)
[PLATFORM REGULATION / ANTITRUST] Antitrust Probe Of Apple Pressed (Wall Street Journal)
[PLATFORM REGULATION / ONLINE HARMS] Congress finally wakes up to Big Tech’s failure to protect kids (Chicago Tribune)
[PLATFORM REGULATION / ONLINE HARMS] As U.S. Supreme Court weighs YouTube’s algorithms, ‘litigation minefield’ looms (Reuters)
[PLATFORM REGULATION / CDA SECTION 230] Justices Seem To Favor Shield For Tech Giants (New York Times)
[PLATFORM REGULATION / CDA SECTION 230] 5 key moments from the Supreme Court’s Gonzalez v. Google arguments ; The plaintiffs got off to a rough start, but the tech giants still may not sleep easy. (Washington Post)
[CONTENT MODERATION] Twitter’s Slashed Work Force Is Hurting Chinese Activists (New York Times)
[CONTENT MODERATION / LAWSUIT] Meta appeals Kenyan court’s decision it can be sued in Kenya (Reuters)
[ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / ONLINE HARMS] AI porn is easy to make now. For women, that’s a nightmare. (Washington Post)
[PLATFORM GOVERNANCE] Elon Musk reinvents Twitter for a power user: Himself (Washington Post)
[PLATFORM REGULATION] Opinion: Sebastian Mallaby: Why the bipartisan consensus against tech giants looks foolish (Washington Post)
[PLATFORM REGULATION / CDA SECTION 230] Opinion: Editorial Board: How the Supreme Court could throw the internet into chaos (Washington Post)
[PLATFORM REGULATION / CDA SECTION 230] Opinion: Mark Pernice: It’s Time to Tear Up Big Tech’s Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card (New York Times)

(February 14 -February 21, 2023)

Supreme Court of Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada announced today that judgment in the following leave applications will be delivered at 9:45 a.m. EST on Thursday, February 23, 2023. This list is subject to change:
- 40317 Glassdoor, Inc. v. Echelon Environmental Inc., Robert Rainford, John Doe (Ont.) (Civil) (By Leave)
  - Courts — Dismissal of proceeding that limits debate — Freedom of expression — Matters of public interest — Whether this Court should clarify the analytical framework for determining what constitutes an “expression that relates to a matter of public interest” — Whether expressions that are properly characterized as “online reviews” should be presumptively considered “expressions that relate to a matter of public interest”.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

A discussion on privacy: priorities, challenges and opportunities
- Date delivered: January 25, 2023 Address by: Philippe Dufresne Event: Access to Information and Privacy community meeting

Google

Google returns to the Munich Security Conference

Microsoft

Making IP a force-enabler for solving big problems

CRTC

Telecommunications Consultations

2023-39 – Call for comments – Development of a regulatory framework to improve network reliability and resiliency – Mandatory notification and reporting about major telecommunications service outages – Public record: 1011-NOC2023-0039