Deplatforming Misogyny
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Copyright © 2021 Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) Published by Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) 180 Dundas Street West, Suite 1420 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1C7 www.leaf.ca LEAF is a national, charitable, non-profit organization, founded in 1985. LEAF works to advance the substantive equality rights of women and girls in Canada through litigation, law reform and public education using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This publication was created as part of LEAF's Technology-Facilitated Violence (TFV) Project. The TFV Project brings together feminist lawyers and academics to conduct research and produce publications imagining legal responses to TFV against women and gender-diverse people that are informed by equality principles. The project also supports and informs LEAF’s law reform efforts and potential upcoming interventions concerning TFV. Acknowledgements Deep gratitude and appreciation go to the many people whose efforts and support made this publication possible. This report was researched and written by Cynthia Khoo, a technology and human rights lawyer and researcher. Cynthia holds an LL.M. (Concentration in Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa, where she worked on cases as junior counsel at the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). Her paper on platform liability for emergent systemic harm to historically marginalized groups received the inaugural Ian R. Kerr Robotnik Memorial Award for the Best Paper by an Emerging Scholar at We Robot 2020. She has managed a sole practice law firm, Tekhnos Law, and obtained her J.D. from the University of Victoria. Her work and expertise span across key areas of technology and human rights law and policy, including privacy and surveillance, equality and freedom from discrimination, online censorship and freedom of expression, intermediary liability, algorithmic decision-making, and technology-facilitated violence. The report was overseen and coordinated by Rosel Kim, Staff Lawyer at LEAF; Pam Hrick, Executive Director and General Counsel at LEAF; and Megan Stephens, former Executive Director and General Counsel at LEAF. Sincere thanks are further extended to Pam Hrick and Rosel Kim for contributing substantive revisions, editing, and copyediting of the report. This report benefited significantly from the insights and expertise of the following reviewers (in alphabetical order by last name): Moira Aikenhead, Jane Bailey, Karen Bellehumeur, Nicole Biros-Bolton, Suzie Dunn, Lex Gill, Nicola Henry, Pam Hrick, Tamir Israel, Jo-Ann Kolmes, Rosel Kim, Emily Laidlaw, Brenda McPhail, Jill Presser, Molly Reynolds, Megan Stephens, and Jennifer Tomaszewski. Thank you as well to Donald Jackson, Julie Mouris, Kat Owens, Cee Strauss, Rosel Kim, and Pam Hrick, for much- appreciated assistance with the citations for this report. Special thanks to the LEAF TFV Advisory Committee: Moira Aikenhead, Jane Bailey, Karen Bellehumeur, Suzie Dunn, Gillian Hnatiw, Pam Hrick, Nathalie Léger, Raine Liliefeldt, Molly Reynolds, Hadiya Roderique, and Karen Segal. Thank you to Kristyn Watterworth, who designed the cover page of this report. This report was funded by the generous support of: the Canadian Bar Association’s Law for the Future Fund; the Pilot Fund for Gender Equality, a collaboration between Community Foundations of Canada and the Equality Fund, with support from the Government of Canada; and the J. Armand Bombardier Foundation. Table of Contents Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1. Introduction and Overview ................................................................................................................... 10 1.1. Research Scope and Methodology ................................................................................................................. 10 1.2. Report Outline ................................................................................................................................................. 12 2. Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, Abuse, and Harassment .................................... 14 2.1. Introduction to TFGBV .................................................................................................................................... 14 2.1.1. What Is TFGBV? ....................................................................................................................................... 15 2.1.2. TFGBV in Intimate Partner and Dating Violence ................................................................................... 22 2.1.3. Impacts of TFGBV and Intersectionality ................................................................................................ 23 2.1.4. Note on Terminology: Call It TFGBV ...................................................................................................... 28 2.2. Speech-Based TFGBV on Digital Platforms .................................................................................................... 31 2.2.1. Expression-Based TFGBV in Canadian Case Law .................................................................................. 32 2.2.2. TFGBV Targets Women with High Visibility or Public Presence ........................................................... 36 3. Role of Digital Platforms in TFGBV...................................................................................................... 40 3.1. How Digital Platforms Facilitate TFGBV ......................................................................................................... 44 3.1.1. What Are Digital Platforms? ................................................................................................................... 44 3.1.2. Digital Platforms as Central Sites of TFGBV .......................................................................................... 46 3.1.3. Platform Design and Business Models Optimize for TFGBV ................................................................. 53 3.2. How Platform Dynamics Characterize TFGBV ............................................................................................... 59 3.2.1. Platformed TFGBV Weaponizes Expression to Harm Women .............................................................. 60 3.2.2. Platformed TFGBV Is Networked, Socially Gamified, and Distributed ................................................. 62 3.2.3. Platformed TFGBV Normalizes and Escalates Violence against Women ............................................. 64 3.3. Platform Content Moderation Policies and Practices ................................................................................... 70 3.3.1. Community Standards ........................................................................................................................... 72 3.3.2. User Flagging and Reporting.................................................................................................................. 77 3.3.3. Human Review (Content Moderators) ................................................................................................... 78 3.3.4. Automated Moderation: Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence ........................................................... 80 3.3.5. Ranking and Recommendations ........................................................................................................... 82 3.3.6. Fact-Checking, Labelling, and External Linking .................................................................................... 84 3.3.7. External Content Moderation Bodies .................................................................................................... 85 3.4. Critiques of Platform Approaches to Speech-Based TFGBV ......................................................................... 87 3.4.1. Inconsistent and Unprincipled: “Free Speech” Rhetoric ...................................................................... 88 3.4.2. Reactive, Arbitrary, and Selective: Damage-Control Approach ........................................................... 90 3.4.3. Conflicting Incentives: Business Priorities and Political Influence ...................................................... 93 4. Platform Liability for TFGBV in Canadian Law ................................................................................... 97 4.1. Intermediary Liability Principles in Canadian Law ........................................................................................ 99 4.2. Federal Legislation Currently in Force ......................................................................................................... 106 4.2.1. Copyright Act ......................................................................................................................................... 106 4.2.1. Criminal Code ........................................................................................................................................ 112 4.2.3. Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) ............................................................................ 115 4.3. Federal Legislation Announced and Parliamentary Studies....................................................................... 116 4.4. Provincial Legislation.................................................................................................................................... 120 4.4.1. Quebec Intermediary Liability