An Opinion on Bill C-10

Recently in Canadian Politics the Liberal party lead by Justin Trudeau has been blasted by the conservative party for Bill C-10. The Conservatives claim the Bill C-10 will make it difficult for Canadians to post to social media with out it being regulated by the Canadian Canadian Radio‑television and Telecommunication's agency which ensures media companies follow a set standard. For example, programs that are spoken in French are required including French translation because Canada's official second language is French.

The major concern presented by the Conservative party is that the CRTC would have the ability to regulate what is posted to YouTube and other social Media services. Currently anyone can post what they like to social media for example, a person assuming it follows the guidelines of the social media platform can create what ever kind a channel they dream of and have it show up to a wide Canadian audience. J.J McCullough a Canadian youtuber in his video tried to define what is patriotic Canadian content and argued that the CRTC requires that patriotic Canadian content be published. While he is correct that the CRTC would have this power I can't think of any content that I would consider patriotic content as most of the shows on TV are produced in the United States.

As mentioned at the beginning around the offering of the French language is that currently it is not required to add French subtitles to your published content. This is another concern that was not really brought up although most creators who post to social media should add French subtitles to their videos to reach a broader audience in Canada they should not be forced to do so. Regulating something like that on social media should be up to the person that creates the content and not the decision of a government body to force people who might just enjoy making content to add subtitles.

Something that the Liberal government to think about which is related to wanting to introduce legislation like Bill C-10 to go after streaming company's is what kind of company is You Tube. Yes you can rent shows created by large company's like Sony studios who pay the actor and actresses who act in them but YouTube and other social media sights allow you to post for free and do not require you to take acting school.

Another thing that makes Bill C-10 so bad is that the Liberal government did not take time to examine when the government of the United States tried to do something similar to regulate social media. Donald Trump the former president of the United States attempted to remove a provision from US law that shields social media companies in facing liability for the content that members of social media post.

While it is true there are problems with social media in that anyone can post what they like they do have some self regulation on their platforms. Facebook one of the large social media has its restrictions and has taken a stance on preventing the the spread of misinformation on its platform or even Twitter is another example of a platform that attempted to silence the misinformation of Donald Trump by, correcting his misinformation and then shutting down his accounts for his encouragement of protesting the results of the election.

I think that the Conservative party of Canada is correct in standing against Bill C-10 in that it would limit what Canadians could post to social media. I also understand that their decision to want to limit Social Media may have come from the protests that former President Donald Trump caused in the United States which also lead to the deaths of some of the protesters. The best course of action that the Federal government should take is to reverse its decision and find another way that doesn't involve trying to regulate free speech as it is a right for the people who live in democratic societies.