PM Trudeau says government should work with social media companies to regulate content

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it is very important for the government to work with tech giants in regulating content.

The Canadian Press reported that Trudeau said the government should be careful in how it decides to regulate social media platforms so that it won’t be a way for authoritarian regimes to “further oppress citizens and stifle free speech.”

Trudeau was speaking to conference attendees and government representatives from nearly 100 countries that were gathered at the Open Government Partnership Summit. The three-day summit is aimed at looking at how to regulate hate speech, extremism and election meddling.

“Fundamentally, we can’t look at platforms as automatic antagonists,” Trudeau said. “We recognize the solution doesn’t lie in government’s heavy hand over our internet, over our public spaces.”

“What tools a reasonable, democratic, open government like Canada or others might find extremely useful and good to have on protecting citizens and encouraging competition and assuring that platforms take their responsibility seriously, in a different country might be a tool for oppression of citizens or control or really attacking free speech,” he said.

Trudeau noted that freedom of speech was very important and that deciding how to regulate platforms requires having difficult conversations.

The same week, politicians from 14 different countries were part of the international grand committee that was hosted by Canada’s House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. The committee convened and questions executives from digital platforms to figure out ways in which they could work together to instill regulations.

Source: The Canadian Press