Closing the Gaps: Youth Engagement in Bill C-63

Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act, is a proposed amendment to the Canadian Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act which would act as a regulatory framework to categorize and regulate harmful content on social media platforms. Click here for a fuller overview of the history and specifics of Bill C-63. 

The John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights (JHC) works to advance dignity, freedom, justice, and security through collaborative relationships and transformative education on peace and human rights. JHC prides itself on building spaces for courageous, challenging, and constructive dialogue on pressing human rights issues and using community-based research to inform policy. When JHC launched the Social Stride project in 2020, we aimed to build a healthier online environment by modelling peace and dignity. The project built advocacy capacity and support for young Canadians using social media to address identity-based mis/disinformation. It became increasingly clear that systemic ways of remediation, reparation, and support for victims of online hate and discrimination are nearly non-existent both online and offline. Social media reporting mechanisms, often the sole avenue of support for victims, are ineffective at addressing online harms. Social Stride experience and research have unveiled how hateful online content is rarely reported due to a lack of trust and effective and timely results. The available mechanisms are difficult to navigate, reports of hate or discrimination rarely result in any action from platforms, and reporting mechanisms are easily abused to target victims and people working to confront online hate. In addition to undertaking critical analysis of remediation and reporting mechanisms to address online harms, Social Stride has been dedicated to facilitating spaces for peer-to-peer education and digital literacy. This has included sharing experiences online with young people to increase awareness of the offline roots of online discrimination, creating education and tools to avoid unintended harm, and developing methods to protect young users of social media platforms and games. The project has facilitated spaces where young people living in rural and urban areas felt safe to share experiences, identify issues, and discuss practices and behaviours to protect each other.

JHC celebrates the Government of Canada’s actions in developing legislation that protects and establishes standards to remediate victims of hate and discrimination online. However, since young people are one of the most affected groups by this issue, and their lived experiences guide our work, we wish to share some of the concerns about Bill C-63 that need to be considered as the Government moves forward.

In response to the ongoing discussion around Bill C-63, the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights and its Social Stride team have crafted a research policy brief that addresses the balance of protection from hate speech with democratic and civil rights, and which encourages the engagement of young people in the policy making process.

Read our letter to the Minister, as well as the full research policy brief (Closing the Gaps: Youth Engagement in Bill C-63 - Online Harms) via the links at the top of this page.