BLACKWELL: The high price of Freedom of Speech in the Age of Social Media As a Canadian, you have the right to stay anything you want. Sort of.

There are a few legal exceptions to what is generally referred to as “free speech” or more correctly “Freedom of Expression” in Canada. But as a general rule, as long as you aren’t being a racist, or overtly obscene or hateful, you’re pretty much good to go.

Let’r rip.

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms under Canada’s legislation “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.”

The traditional “fine print” on your “free speech,” as enforced by the courts, were “obscenity and child pornography laws, hate propaganda laws, and the law of defamation..”  The Supreme Court of Canada set these limitations on free speech to protect people from being abused by others. Not seriously hurting people seems like a reasonable compromise to our ability to express ourselves.

The rise of the internet, and in particular social media platforms, has blown the doors off the ability to enforce most of these restrictions. Law enforcement, and both criminal and civil courts can try to keep up, but it’s really a losing game of “whack a mole” where new issues pop up much faster than the slower pace of “the system” can deal with. Very rightfully so, the focus of enforcement is on child pornography and on hate speech; as a citizen and taxpayer myself, I want enforcement to focus on those.

Defamation - “the action of damaging the good reputation of someone,” on the other hand, is a free for all.

Social Media platforms are an overflowing petri dish of defamation, slander, and libel, especially since the big companies decided to end their pitiful attempts at self-regulation.

The big one is Libel “a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.”

The things I’ve seen posted in online groups, both public and private, that would meet the definition of Libel are way too common.

Does the legal system have the time or energy to deal with an endless flow of online libel and other online offences? Not really. And in rare cases where action does occur, the result is almost never worth the time or effort.

As a result, we’re left with an online free for all where people can say defamatory things about anyone else, and unless the offended party wants to blow tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers “just to make the point,” nothing happens. Even when there is a judgement against libelous or slanderous statements, the odds of collecting any court ruled damages, even the cost of the plaintiff’s legal fees, are slim and take a long time.

There is a flip-side to this, a balancing of the online scales so to speak.

If your reputation can be damaged online by offenders, that also means that those offender’s reputations can be damaged by the semi-permanent nature of their online outbursts, a “karmic quid pro quo” if you like. And if there’s one thing we know about the internet, it’s that it remembers absolutely everything. And it’s very searchable.

You can be an absolute miserable prick online. The internet will record it for your great grandchildren to read. Don’t have children or grandchildren? Not a problem- all your future bosses, relatives, credit sources, etc. will read it.

Is it cool, or even legal, for potential employers to do so? It’s questionable, but it is definitely, absolutely happening. No one wants to hire a liability. No one wants to hire someone that will turn off their current or future customers.

Everything you put online will be there for every future employer or future date (and their family) to read until the end of your days.

Don’t think your future employers, or their staff, aren’t checking you out online? I can tell you they are. Once a new hire is announced, I can guarantee that their soon-to-be coworkers are checking out their various profiles.

So, should what you do in your private time, or in the case of social media- in private online groups, be everyone’s business? 

No? Maybe? Doesn’t matter.

One thing we know about human behaviour; people like to gossip. Secrets are rarely secrets for long and never stay secrets forever.

Consider the rise of DNA testing. There are a whole bunch of “new family members” because of the advent of DNA ancestry databases. And those systems are supposedly full of security safeguards for people who don’t want their indiscretions revealed. Social Media companies are definitely not the same about protecting your anonymity. They are the opposite. They sell you; they sell your thoughts, they sell your data.

I get sent stuff on an occasional basis by people who think I should see what people are posting about me or my organization. The digital stack of screenshots of nasty stuff from private Facebook/Twitter etc. groups has eaten up much of my free iCloud memory; hundreds of times over my political career alone.

Think one of those nasty posts was posted by you?  Good. Now it’s your turn to be anxious and paranoid. Happy to return the favour.

There’s a funny thing about people who are absolute beasts online; they are usually quite meek and/or polite in person. Digital tigers, in person pussycats. Not a hard and fast rule, but I’ve experienced it many times.

Anyway … I hate to break worse news. Social Media companies continue to deregulate. More of your private “thoughts’ will become public.

And that doesn’t even tap into the stuff people post publicly and openly without considering the reputational (and economic) consequences of it. I know people that ignore potential buyers on Facebook Marketplace because the person who wants to buy their stuff has been a jerk online. Your ability to freely ‘speak your mind” online has a cost, even if that cost is just a good deal on a pair of Nikes.

What if you don’t post hostile or inappropriate stuff online? Why should you care?

Because the “Shoot first and ask questions later” style of dialogue going on in social media groups is eroding not just the will of people to run for public office, but is eroding the enthusiasm of good people to volunteer for sports teams, food banks, or any service organization that does anything public facing.

We already put people who want to volunteer through a bunch of checks and hoops, especially those where children or money are involved. And we should. Safety first.

But we need to be respectful of the fact that many of the people who make our communities better for all of us are doing so as volunteers; there is no “danger pay” when there is no paycheck involved. The only pay they get is in community gratitude and the joy of giving.

For what it’s worth, the online version of “Shoot First…” should really be “Post first and get your facts later,” because that’s what usually happens; retractions, apologies, or deletions are a rarity.

And you dare not delete a false or defamatory statement, whether it be your comment or someone else’s. Deleting a comment or post attracts suspicion faster than a T bone attracts piranhas, and often with the same ferocity.

All this said, I am still a 100 percent believer in “Freedom of Speech” and “Freedom of Expression”. I fully think we all have the right, with above noted limits, to say whatever we want. Criticize away, rage against the machine. Take your leaders, the businesses you frequent, your systems to task. But do it in a civil and balanced way.

Win with the better argument, show a different point of view that might change minds, get involved to create change.

But we also need to acknowledge that Free Speech has a cost to it, and sometimes that cost is very personal to each of us. Reputation, relationships, respect, mental health.

Weigh your words carefully and maybe think of a better way to say what you need to say. After all, the internet is forever.

Well, sort of.


Merlin Blackwell is the Mayor of Clearwater, BC