Meta open to Online Harms Act talks, Pornhub reviewing legislation

While specific platforms covered by the Online Harms Act aren't known yet, web giant Meta says it is open to working with Ottawa while Pornhub is reviewing the legislation.

One of the largest social media companies, Meta says it is open to talks with Ottawa on the Online Harms Act, while the pornography website Pornhub says it is reviewing the legislation.

The Online Harms Act is a sweeping piece of legislation introduced Monday that primarily tasks online platforms with a duty to protect users from “harmful content” and to bring in extra protections for children.

In the act, harmful content is defined across seven categories. These include content that sexually victimizes children or revictimizes a survivor, content used to bully children, content that could push a child to harm themselves, content that incites violence or terrorism, content that incites violence, content that foments hatred and intimate content shared without consent.

The act aims to cover social media platforms, live-streaming services and adult websites that offer user uploaded content.

“We support the federal government’s goal of helping young people have safe, positive experiences online and have spent more than a decade developing industry-leading tools and policies to protect them,” said Meta Canada’s head of public policy Rachel Curran in an emailed statement.

“We look forward to collaborating with lawmakers and industry peers on our long-standing priority to keep Canadians safe.”

Meta notably butted heads with the Liberal government over the Online News Act, which calls on large platforms to compensate media outlets for links hosted on their platforms.

The legislation only applies to Meta and Google, based on size, and Meta stopped allowing links to Canadian news on Facebook and Instagram as a result.