FAQ
What about Bill C-63 - The Online Harms Act?
Bill C-63 - The Online Harms Act only requires content removed within 24 hours once it has been flagged - subject to subject to oversight and review by the online service. This is to guard against frivolous flags.
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A 24hr takedown is not enough. Many victims of CSAM or non-consensual intimate image sharing may not discover the presence of abuse online for years.
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Within 24 hours, CSAM and intimate images can be downloaded and re-shared endlessly.
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Why is this bill important?
Violence against women and girls continues to devastate so many lives, especially when it is shared publicly online. We have heard the stories from survivors. And we have learned that this industry cannot be trusted to police itself.
A big part of ending violence against women is ensuring consent which is at the heart of this Bill. So much of the content for sale on these sites feature minors – who cannot consent - as well as individuals who have been raped, drugged, coerced, or filmed without their consent. These videos would not be online if the companies who published them verified the age and consent of each person in the video.
Since so many of these videos feature women and girls, this is another step we can take as a country to eliminate violence against women.
Is this Bill anti-porn?
No. This Bill is directly focused on ending the spread of child abuse materials and videos of sexual assault and non-consent. What we are targeting here is filmed acts of exploitation. We are trying to prevent these videos of crimes from being disseminated across the internet by holding companies responsible to verify the age and consent of every individual in every video they create or publish. This is a basic level of corporate responsibility. Don’t profit of the exploitation of others.
What else needs to be done?
This is a complex issue and there is much more that need to be done. For example, victims and survivors of pornographic exploitation in Canada have little recourse against those who profit from their ongoing sexual exploitation. Other countries like Australia have created complaints mechanisms for victims to report content.
Victims and survivors also need tools and avenues to hold companies accountable and sue for damages.
What about commercial purpose?
Canadian courts have interpreted commercial purpose as an activity connected with trade and traffic or commerce in general. Companies that publish these types of sexual exploitation or allow these videos to be published do so because it is profitable, particularly through ad revenue.
What about revoking consent?
For both survivors as well as those who may have originally consented to making pornographic material, there needs to be the ability to revoke this consent. If anyone decides they no longer want explicit videos of themselves online, they should have the right to request it no longer be there.
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A 2022 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on consent stated “It is now indisputable that consent is a subjective state of mind, entirely personal to the complainant. There is no room for implied consent in Canada.”
This Bill communicates that there is no room for implied consent on the internet. Ongoing consent matters.
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