Canada could be on the cusp of a bizarre new era in which federal regulators will be empowered to figure out whether our online porn is sufficiently Canadian — and levy the requisite punishments if it isn’t.
Bill C-11 — the Liberal push to subject much of the internet to CRTC control — has passed the House of Commons with NDP and Bloc Québécois support. Absent any major revisions by the Senate, the likes of Netflix, YouTube and even Instagram will soon be forced to subject their content to Canada’s famously onerous strictures on Canadian content.
But less discussed is how Bill C-11 will also apply to the internet’s vast wilderness of streaming pornography.
The legislation applies to all programs broadcast via “online undertaking.” During committee hearings this was commonly understood to encompass streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix or Disney+, but there’s nothing in the bill to prevent it from extending to the millions of hours of streaming adult content regularly consumed by Canadians.
No less than Peter Menzies — former CRTC vice-chair and a fierce C-11 critic — has said online porn will almost certainly fall within the bill’s purview.
“The final decision regarding who’s in and who’s out is to be made in a future CRTC hearing, but it’s difficult to imagine Commissioners giving Pornhub and its many hours of user-generated content an exemption,” he wrote in a column earlier this month.
Regulating porn would be nothing new for the CRTC. Canada’s many adult-oriented cable channels must already adhere to stringent Canadian Content requirements enforced by the CRTC.
In 2014, a Toronto-based creator of erotic channels was even threatened with having their licence pulled for failing to ensure that at least 35 per cent of their adult content was Canadian — the equivalent of 8.5 hours of Canadian porn per day. The channels — which included XXX Action Clips and the gay-oriented Maleflixxx — also received a CRTC reprimand for failing to include sufficient closed captioning.
The most controversial aspect of Bill C-11 is how it would force online streamers to “ensure the discoverability of Canadian programming.” Right now, YouTube uses complex algorithms to pair users with content they might find interesting. Under C-11, those algorithms would be tweaked by federal mandate to disproportionately pair users with content that regulators have deemed to be sufficiently Canadian. Non-Canadian content, meanwhile, would need to be artificially hidden.
As to what content qualifies as Canadian, everything from Netflix feature films to basement YouTubers would need to submit to the CRTC’s onerous “points system.”
Under the system — which is already mandatory for TV channels — content creators must file detailed budgets with the CRTC to prove minimum quotas of Canadian actors, Canadian crew and even the quantity of production costs that were verifiably spent in Canada.
FIRST READING: Canada set to censor internet porn to ensure it’s 'Canadian' enough | National Post
Bill C-11 — the Liberal push to subject much of the internet to CRTC control — has passed the House of Commons with NDP and Bloc Québécois support. Absent any major revisions by the Senate, the likes of Netflix, YouTube and even Instagram will soon be forced to subject their content to Canada’s famously onerous strictures on Canadian content.
But less discussed is how Bill C-11 will also apply to the internet’s vast wilderness of streaming pornography.
The legislation applies to all programs broadcast via “online undertaking.” During committee hearings this was commonly understood to encompass streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix or Disney+, but there’s nothing in the bill to prevent it from extending to the millions of hours of streaming adult content regularly consumed by Canadians.
No less than Peter Menzies — former CRTC vice-chair and a fierce C-11 critic — has said online porn will almost certainly fall within the bill’s purview.
“The final decision regarding who’s in and who’s out is to be made in a future CRTC hearing, but it’s difficult to imagine Commissioners giving Pornhub and its many hours of user-generated content an exemption,” he wrote in a column earlier this month.
Regulating porn would be nothing new for the CRTC. Canada’s many adult-oriented cable channels must already adhere to stringent Canadian Content requirements enforced by the CRTC.
In 2014, a Toronto-based creator of erotic channels was even threatened with having their licence pulled for failing to ensure that at least 35 per cent of their adult content was Canadian — the equivalent of 8.5 hours of Canadian porn per day. The channels — which included XXX Action Clips and the gay-oriented Maleflixxx — also received a CRTC reprimand for failing to include sufficient closed captioning.
The most controversial aspect of Bill C-11 is how it would force online streamers to “ensure the discoverability of Canadian programming.” Right now, YouTube uses complex algorithms to pair users with content they might find interesting. Under C-11, those algorithms would be tweaked by federal mandate to disproportionately pair users with content that regulators have deemed to be sufficiently Canadian. Non-Canadian content, meanwhile, would need to be artificially hidden.
As to what content qualifies as Canadian, everything from Netflix feature films to basement YouTubers would need to submit to the CRTC’s onerous “points system.”
Under the system — which is already mandatory for TV channels — content creators must file detailed budgets with the CRTC to prove minimum quotas of Canadian actors, Canadian crew and even the quantity of production costs that were verifiably spent in Canada.
FIRST READING: Canada set to censor internet porn to ensure it’s 'Canadian' enough | National Post
