A video showing a man being arrested by UK police for social media comments has some Canadians warning that Canada’s own legislation could be used in a similarly “draconian” way.
The Crown Prosecution Service has named one man, 28-year-old Jordan Parlour, as the first person to be arrested over social media comments. The comments related to riots sparked by a 17-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan immigrants who went on a stabbing spree, killing three young girls aged six to nine.
Parlour was convicted of “using threatening words or behaviour to stir up racial hatred,” though True North was unable to verify if he was the same man in the video. Parlour pleaded guilty to the charges.
The video shows police informing the unidentified man in his home that he is going to be arrested for allegedly making “offensive comments” online.
“I’m arresting you on suspicion of improper use of the electronic communications network,” the police officer said, referring to the UK’s Communications Act law.
The law makes it criminal to send “by means of a public electronic communications network” a message that is “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing in character, or causes any such message or matter to be so sent.”
The video shared widely on X attracted the ire of renowned Canadian psychologist and author Dr. Jordan Peterson, X CEO Elon Musk and Canadian veteran and former Freedom Convoy spokesperson Tom Marazzo.
Peterson called the incident “the disappearance of everything folks in the UK hold dear.”
Musk posted a meme pointing out the apparent absurdity of someone being arrested for “making a Facebook comment that the UK government didn’t like.”
Former journalist and senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, Peter Menzies, told True North that it’s important to pay attention what is happening in other countries.
He said people being arrested in England for things they say is nothing new, pointing to a case last year in which six police officers were arrested for private WhatsApp messages they sent to each other.
He said aspects of Canada’s proposed Online Harms Act, Bill C-63, could similarly chill free speech in Canada though Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms affords Canadians protections that are absent in the U.K.
“They don’t have a Charter of Rights, so they can do things under British law that I’m pretty sure would not stand up to a Charter challenge in Canada,” Menzies said.
Although he thinks Canadians can feel “pretty confident” that the charter protects them, Menzies said they should be “very nervous” about the potential for authoritarianism in the Online Harms Act.
The bill would allow Canadians to complain to the Human Rights Commission when they think somebody’s speech is harmful online.
“The Human Rights Commission will likely receive thousands upon thousands of complaints from people just trying to shut down their opponents,” Menzies said. “It’ll be a very efficient way for people to shut down their ideological, social, and political opponents.”
The proposed law could also grant life imprisonment for anyone who breaches any part of the act.
The act also enables provincial courts to place a person under house arrest if they “reasonably believe” that the accused will commit a hate speech crime online in the future.
Menzies said the part of the act which deals with the Human Rights Commission is draconian.
“The Human Rights Commission is not the same as a court of law. The burden of proof tends to fall on the accused. it’s often said that the process is the punishment and can drag on for years and years,” he said.
He said the whole process “becomes a real shakedown” as people frequently pay thousands of dollars to avoid the drawn-out cases.
Instead of the bill, Menzies thinks social media companies should band together as they have done in New Zealand to ban harmful material from their websites rather than handing over power to the state to criminalize certain speech online.
