The Problem of Extremist Content Online

In August 2017, white supremacists rallied by torchlight in Charlottesville, Virginia, in efforts to “Unite the Right” as part of the “Summer of Hate” organized by the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website. Legal proceedings against organizers revealed they had used social media sites to plan the violent riot, in which anti-racism activist Heather Heyer was killed.

Where are we five years later in dealing with extremists online? Natasha Tusikov writes that despite regulatory efforts worldwide, major questions remain about when and how technology companies, and governments, should act in relation to illegal and harmful conduct online.

Mark MacCarthy writes that in recent months the academic community has produced some substantial and long-overdue new thinking on disinformation that challenges many of the presuppositions of disinformation efforts undertaken thus far by governments and social media companies.

Among its many insights, this new thinking has focused on what MacCarthy says is undoubtedly the most urgent step of all for political leaders — and thought leaders more broadly — in the current political climate: to formulate visions of the collective good and to seek to persuade citizens that such visions are attractive and achievable.

“A dominant firm buying a disruptive rival in a market where Canadians pay some of the highest prices in the world should be a non-starter, but Canada’s weak competition laws lead regulators to craft complex and risky solutions instead of simply saying no to harmful mergers.”

In this op-ed first published in The Globe and Mail, Keldon Bester scrutinizes Canada’s approach to the proposed merger of communications and media giants Rogers and Shaw, whose parties have re-entered mediation in attempts to address competition concerns. He argues that instead of focusing on getting the deal, the law should be pushing firms to compete fairly rather than swallowing up their rivals.

Nov. 14 – 7:00 p.m. EST (UTC–05:00) – Waterloo, Canada: The late Canadian diplomat and commentator John Wendell Holmes believed the best public policy emerged out of an appreciation of history and context. Taking this approach, the contributors to CIGI’s essay series Situating Canada in a Changing World, sponsored by the Holmes Trust, reflected on and offered practical solutions to contemporary security and public policy challenges.

Please join us on November 14 for a conversation with two of the series’ contributors, Timothy Andrews Sayle and Laurence Deschamps-Laporte. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session moderated by Aaron Shull and Adam Chapnick.

This hybrid event is free and open to the public. Find out more and register here.