Google warns Canada’s plan to fight online hate is ‘vulnerable to abuse’

Google is one of the first major tech companies to comment on Canada's proposed approach to handle harmful online content.

Google is one of the first major tech companies to comment on Canada’s proposed approach to handle harmful online content.

In a Google Canada blog post, the internet giant said that there are aspects of the government’s proposal that “could be vulnerable to abuse and lead to over removal of legitimate content.”

The government first proposed in July 2021 a new Digital Safety Commission (DSC) with the power to regulate hateful online content from major platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pornhub.

The government identified five categories of hateful content which the platforms would have to monitor within 24 hours of complaints: hate speech, child sexual exploitation content, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, incitement to violence and terrorist content.

However, Google notes the proposed requirement for platforms to take down user-flagged content within 24 hours could be taken advantage of by others to harass or limit speech.

“It’s essential to strike the right balance between speed and accuracy,” the company wrote. “User flags are best utilized as ‘signals’ of potentially violative content, rather than definitive statements of violations.”

Google said that in Q2 2021, out of the 17.2 million videos flagged by users on its YouTube platform, nearly 300,000 were removed. However, Google removed 6.2 million videos total for violating its community guidelines, showing that flagging is not all-encompassing for tackling hateful content.

Google also strongly warned against proactively monitoring content, where content is scanned for material that could fall into one of the five hateful content categories before being posted.