Our guest is Mark Joseph. He is Litigation Director at a group in Canada called The Democracy Fund. It’s widely considered the leading voice in the battle for free speech in Canada.

I wanted to talk to Mark about a specific bill under consideration in Canada that would enable the spread of censorship and threaten free speech in that country. It’s called the Online Harms Bill.

Links:

* The Democracy Fund Website

* Online Harms Act (official site)

* Canada Eyes Revival of Online Censorship Bill (Reclaim The Net)

Our guest is David McGarry. He is Research Director at an organization called the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. He is a pundit and a frequent contributor to magazines and news sites on a wide range of topics. He usually writes about things tied to technology, government accountability and consumer impact.

Lately, he’s been weighing in on a new law in Europe that seems targeted toward American companies and Americans online. It’s called the Digital Services Act.

The EU’s Digital Services Act (or DSA) was enacted in 2022 and just went into effect. It seeks to regulate online platforms by addressing illegal content, including hate speech and disinformation. How do you define hate speech and disinformation? That’s one of the things we’ll be talking about today.

The Digital Services Act applies to tech sites that have more than 45 million users in Europe. These sites include Twitter, or X, Meta, and Google. It requires them to conduct more comprehensive “content moderation, transparency in algorithms, and user tools to flag harmful content.”

Companies that don’t comply can be fined up 6% of their global revenue, or they may face bans in Europe.

Links:

* David McGarry at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (website)

* European Technology Policy Mistakes: Lessons for American Lawmakers | National Review by David McGarry

* The EU Wants to Censor the Global Market, Spiked

What you don’t know can hurt you.

Our guest today is Stacy Malkan. She’s the co-founder and the managing editor at a nonprofit public health research group called, U.S. Right to Know. The group covers public health science, and it tracks industry lobbying efforts. She’s covered everything from how pesticides impact the foods you eat, to the health risks of the cosmetics you use.

Some links from this episode:

* U.S. Right to Know (website)

* AGRA - Sustainably Growing Africa's Food Systems (website)

* Alliance for Science (website)

* The Bill Gates Problem by Tim Schwab (book/Amazon)

* Gates Foundation (website)

* Merchants of Poison, by Stacy Malkan