So…if I were to say online that Donald Trump is an absolute disgrace, and people in the US should vote for his opponent, should I be facing charges in the US? Or maybe my comment should just be nuked?
By no means am I arguing that foreign influence is a good thing, but it’s awfully hard to regulate effectively.
In this case, the context was that there was a threat being made, that voters could be materially harmed by the Chinese government if they did not vote a particular way. This is something that China has a history of actually following through on, so it’s obvious that people took it seriously. I don’t really have a problem with someone voicing their own individual opinion.
To keep things simple though, probably all social media comments made by someone who is not in Canada related to Canadian politics should not be visible while in Canada. Canadians should be allowed to talk to each other freely. If Canadians want to see how Americans are feeling about our election, they should have to seek that information out from News Outlets, Pollsters, or even just directly talking to someone rather than it just showing up in some random feed on Facebook.
This article does not say threats were made - it says, “according to Chinese Canadian interview subjects, this invoked a widespread fear amongst electors, described as a fear of retributive measures from Chinese authorities should a CPC government be elected.”
That’s bad, to be sure, but if there was no direct threat, you’re going to have a pretty hard time prosecuting the issue.
So…if I were to say online that Donald Trump is an absolute disgrace, and people in the US should vote for his opponent, should I be facing charges in the US? Or maybe my comment should just be nuked?
By no means am I arguing that foreign influence is a good thing, but it’s awfully hard to regulate effectively.
In this case, the context was that there was a threat being made, that voters could be materially harmed by the Chinese government if they did not vote a particular way. This is something that China has a history of actually following through on, so it’s obvious that people took it seriously. I don’t really have a problem with someone voicing their own individual opinion.
To keep things simple though, probably all social media comments made by someone who is not in Canada related to Canadian politics should not be visible while in Canada. Canadians should be allowed to talk to each other freely. If Canadians want to see how Americans are feeling about our election, they should have to seek that information out from News Outlets, Pollsters, or even just directly talking to someone rather than it just showing up in some random feed on Facebook.
This article does not say threats were made - it says, “according to Chinese Canadian interview subjects, this invoked a widespread fear amongst electors, described as a fear of retributive measures from Chinese authorities should a CPC government be elected.”
That’s bad, to be sure, but if there was no direct threat, you’re going to have a pretty hard time prosecuting the issue.