Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently held a townhall in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa to discuss online safety, misinformation, climate change, and more. As reported by Reclaim the Net, he expressed his desire to “responsibilize” social media companies to protect citizens against “disinformation” online, citing the fact that companies do not currently have to abide by policies paid by “taxes to keep you safe.”
“Governments have very limited tools to protect people in an online world, which is a good thing,” Trudeau explained. “It allows for a tremendous amount of freedom – freedom of expression, freedom of discovery – no oppressive governments controlling what you see, what you want. But it also opens us up to a tremendous amount of crap, of hate speech, of things that are illegal, but also things that are just going to bring us down roads where we’re going to get lost.”
Ive always felt the DS was going to use the whole flat earther thing against us at some point…
Trudeau advocates for censorship by talking about flat earth!
This is the most cringe speech I have ever listened to…
🤮🤮🤮https://t.co/0qVUF8umeu pic.twitter.com/Z2Lvk7lBEK— Maverick17 (@Maverick171776) March 26, 2023
Trudeau shared his thoughts on disinformation, citing his fascination with flat-earthers and their rejection of scientific facts:
“I remember a few years ago before the pandemic, getting really fascinated by flat-earthers, and trying to understand – sort of – the thinking behind them, of people who decided actively to create an identity for themselves that was to just clearly reject what science settled thousands of years ago with the ancient Greeks and that there’s no real contrast to.”
Trudeau went on to suggest that throughout recorded history, there was never a moment where people questioned whether the Earth was flat or not:
“There wasn’t really any moment back in recorded history… [when people] wondered whether the Earth was actually flat or not.”
The Canadian Prime Minister then linked the rise of “anti-vaxxers” and “anti-science” movements to the dangerous spread of misinformation online:
“There are people in Canada who died surrounded by their families because they truly and genuinely believed that the vaccine was more dangerous than the virus, and it killed them.”
Trudeau warned of the real consequences of living in echo chambers that validate dangerous and unfounded beliefs.
He expressed concern that companies currently do not have to abide by policies paid for by taxes that aim to keep people safe.
“We have to have reflections on how we move forward, how we responsibilize the companies that are controlling so much, the private companies that are controlling so much of the public square you now live in that doesn’t have police paid by your taxes to keep you safe,” Trudeau explained, comparing the need for online regulation to consumer market regulations.
Trudeau further explained that the internet is a new world that requires adjustment, and he expressed worry about the direction we are heading in. “It doesn’t have rules around businesses to regulate so you don’t get scammed by the corner store. This is the new world we’re in that we’re going to have to try and adjust to, and I can tell you, I’m worried about the direction we’re going,” he said.
