From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

In light of the barrage of new internet censorship laws being passed or brought forth by the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a new survey revealed that the majority of Canadians feel their freedom of speech is under attack.

According to results from a Leger survey conducted April 26-28 that sampled responses from 1,610 Canadians, 57 percent think their freedom of speech is being threatened, with 36 percent not believing this to be true.

Not surprisingly, those with conservative voting intentions, about 76 percent, were the most likely to feel that their free speech is under attack, with 70 percent of the same group as well as those over 55, feeling that Canada is not as free as before.

The survey results also show that 62 percent of Canadians think it is “tougher to voice their opinion in their country, while 27% think it is easier.”

“Conservative voters (70%) and Canadians aged 55 or older (70%) are more likely to think that it is tougher now to express their opinion,” Leger noted in its survey.

Not surprisingly, Liberal voters were the most supportive of placing limits on free speech, with 64 percent agreeing with the following: “There should be limits on freedom of speech to ensure that things such as hate speech, speeches preaching a form of intolerance, or speeches against democracy be prevented from reaching the public.”

The survey also revealed that about one of four conservative voters believe that their views are not socially acceptable.

Sixty percent of conservative voters said that free speech should never be limited in any manner and that one should be able to express their opinions publicly without issue.

Regarding their reasons for free speech being under attack, 11 percent blamed politicians causing more hate, with eight percent saying “right-wing” extremists were to blame, with seven percent blaming woke-minded thinking as the issue. Twenty-nine percent of Canadians felt that a growing lack of respect is to blame, and 13 percent thought it is due to “a degradation of the moral fibre in the country.”

A bit concerningly, only six of 10 Canadians have confidence that the next federal election, scheduled for 2025, will be “free and fair,” with 29 percent saying outright they are “not confident.”

When it comes to internet censorship laws, the most recent one introduced in the House of Commons is a federal government bill that could lead to large fines or jail time for vaguely defined online “hate speech” infractions under Liberal Minster Attorney General Arif Virani’s Bill C-63, or Online Harms Act.

LifeSiteNews recently reported how well-known Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and Queen’s University law professor Bruce Pardy blasted Trudeau and his government over Bill C-63.

Peterson noted that in his view, Bill C-63 is “designed … to produce a more general regime for online policing.”

“To me, that’s what it looks like,” he said.

Two other Trudeau bills dealing with freedom on the internet have become law, the first being Bill C-11 or the Online Streaming Act that mandates Canada’s broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), oversee regulating online content on platforms such as YouTube and Netflix to ensure that such platforms are promoting content in accordance with a variety of its guidelines.

Trudeau’s other internet censorship law, the Online News Act, was passed by the Senate in June 2023.

The law mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked all access to news content in Canada. Google has promised to do the same rather than pay the fees laid out in the new legislation.

Critics of recent laws such as tech mogul Elon Musk have said it shows “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada.”

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By JASON COHEN

Agencies in President Joe Biden’s administration have resumed their perceived disinformation censorship collaboration with social media companies, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner told reporters at a recent security conference, Nextgov/FCW reported.

The administration stopped “misinformation” censorship collaboration with social media platforms after a July Missouri v. Biden ruling to prevent federal agencies from coordinating with social media companies, but recently restarted this work, Warner # reporters, according to Nextgov. He said the cooperation resumed as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, now called Murthy v. Missouri, in March, where multiple justices indicated they supported the Biden administration’s viewpoint that it has the right to work with platforms to combat what it believes is harmful content.

Democrat Senator Mark Warner says there’s a “voluntary agreement about disinformation and misinformation in elections” between “all 20 of the major social media companies” pic.twitter.com/YmIyAuJBrw

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 21, 2024

“There seemed to be a lot of sympathy that the government ought to have at least voluntary communications with [the companies],” Warner said, according to Nextgoc. He also reportedly called on the Biden administration to take strong action against any foreign countries that try to interfere in the 2024 election.

The agencies include the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), according to NextGov.

“If the bad guy started to launch AI-driven tools that would threaten election officials in key communities, that clearly falls into the foreign interference category,” he added.

A district court judge issued an injunction in July preventing certain officials in agencies from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the FBI from communicating with social media platforms to censor speech, characterizing the government conduct exposed by the plaintiffs in the case as arguably “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, expressed concern during March oral arguments about restricting the government’s ability to persuade companies to take action when necessary, such as when terrorists disseminate speech on a platform.

The justices also questioned whether the plaintiffs could prove their platforms censored their speech as a direct result of the government.

Facebook executives believed they were engaged in a “knife fight” with Biden’s White House on COVID-19 censorship, according to a recent House Judiciary Committee report. Biden accused the platform of “killing people” in July 2021 for not censoring so-called COVID-19 misinformation, and unearthed WhatsApp messages between Facebook executives revealed that they were unhappy about the president’s remarks.

Warner, the White House and the FBI did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. CISA declined to comment, but notified the DCNF about an Election Security hearing in the coming weeks with the agency’s Director, Jen Easterly.