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It’s alarming that regulators are even considering banning Fox News from Canadian airwaves.
Commentary
Canada’s Radio and Television Communications Commission (CRTC) was once a federally established regulatory agency. These days, the CRTC acts as a national censorship agency. What the CRTC is Considering Fox News Network Ban .
The CRTC should be open to considering all complaints, but should immediately dismiss activist-based requests for censorship. No one wants to see literal hate, as defined by criminal law, spread over the air, but when it comes to complaints from hypersensitive and irrational ideologues, a reality check needs to be done. Activists call for the cancellation and censorship of outlets and people for the most trivial perceived violations. Even Harry Potter author J.K. did not.
Issues such as trans participation in some sports categories and placing trans women who still have functional male genitalia in women’s shelters are hot and require open debate. Activists want to stop all discussion on one side of the issue, and the CRTC is indulging them.
Even if the CRTC denies a request from Canada to ban Fox News, Considering such movements It has chilled the narrative and discouraged existing outlets from discussing potentially controversial issues. If so, Fox News and other news outlets could be in a financial and planning limbo. The process is punishment.
The censorship powers and roles granted to the CRTC through the government’s Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11) and Online News Act (Bill C-18) are nuanced, broad, and powerful. The CRTC now has the means and the ability to determine what is news and what is not, and who in Canada can see it.
Bill C-11 gave the CRTC permission to stream content over the Internet. Podcasters, YouTube broadcasters, or online video personalities may be subject to the same regulations as major broadcasters. The CRTC has the authority to administer Internet producers to “protect, enrich and enhance Canada’s cultural, political, social and economic fabric.” Under these conditions, his government-appointed CRTC officials could find excuses to shut down nearly any online content producer if necessary. Of course I intend to.
The Internet has long been the Wild West of information, and we’ve had to accept the good and the bad. It has empowered individuals and citizen journalists in ways unimaginable just 20 years ago. It’s no surprise that authoritarians seek to control these new channels of communication, but it’s sad to see how easily they get away with it.
Bill C-18 would crush smaller news content producers while pushing the larger media outlets to come under more government control. The bill would force social media giants to pay approved media outlets for links to their news content. This clever and odious scheme forces the private market to pay the tab while the government controls who gets the money. There is a nature. Content creators are strongly encouraged not to publish anything critical of the government.
In its role as a censorship agency, the CRTC is responsible for determining whether newsrooms “can be demonstrated to be credible news outlets.”
Last year, the CBC publish 36 corrections to your news article. Will the CRTC question the credibility of the CBC? I can’t hold my breath.
Executive Director Scott Shortliffe Broadcast policy with CRTCtold the senator:
The Canadian government has empowered itself to determine what news is credible and what is not, who will pay for it and who is allowed to see it. It seems that most citizens are unaware of it.
People and producers will find ways to circumvent government censorship. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide a way to bypass control, and broadcast technology always advances faster than governments can handle it. People don’t have to go out of their way to find information that has not been filtered by the government.
Ultimately, government censorship efforts fail and collapse. they always do.
But Canada’s democracy will be undermined as a cyclical battle unfolds between authoritarians and empowered citizens.
This is a fight that shouldn’t have happened.
Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Epoch Times.
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