How the Government-Communications Industry Threatens Free Speech

And just what is it that they're so busy trying to communicate?

Two of our civilization’s greatest treasures are Magna Carta and the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution. Both had the immediate effect of limiting government control over the lives of their citizens. And both inspired continued expansion of the underlying principles.

I’ll freely admit that, as a Canadian, I’m jealous of the First Amendment. Sure, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects expression. But it’s a protection that’s tentative and fragile.

For instance, legislation or the courts could explicitly limit expression as long as the limit satisfies the Oakes Test. Oakes principles depend on a court’s judgment that, for example, an imposed limit’s objective is pressing and substantial. Historically, courts have imposed serious constraints on Canadians’ rights of expression based on what might be considered exaggerated definitions of pressing and substantial.

To be fair, in Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v Whatcott (2013), the Supreme Court of Canada did rule that offensive language that just “ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of” protected groups isn’t actionable. But they nevertheless criminalized speech that “exposes or tends to expose to hatred”.

For context, speech that actually incites violence is already criminal. Although, as we’ve seen from countless illegal street and campus protests over the past couple of years, the law is seldom enforced.

How hard would it be to imagine a scenario where someone - perhaps the Macdonald Laurier Institute - publishes a balanced and carefully footnoted criticism of serious flaws in a government bill. The post is accused of "exposing or tending to expose to hatred" towards the bill’s protected-class supporters. Could such a finding lead to government-funded prosecution of the authors in a human rights tribunal? And even if the Supreme Court might, in theory, eventually reject the charges based on proportionality or impairment concerns, do the authors have the money and resources to get anywhere near the Supreme Court?

I don’t believe that the Charter sufficiently protects Canadians from the suppression of their political- or conscience-based speech. And I do believe that the real threat of subjective and politicized judicial decisions has a chilling impact on speech and even thought.

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Wait. Hang on. I’ve been banging on about protecting citizen communications. What’s that have to do with the government communications in the post title?

Well they’re obviously not the same thing. But it’s fair to suggest that whenever citizen expression is suppressed, government speech is amplified. Which does make it that much more important for us to understand exactly what government is currently saying and how they’re saying it.

To some degree - especially since the creation of state school systems - communicating has been at the center of many government activities. For better or for worse, that’s unlikely to change. So let’s ignore public education for now and focus on governments’ relationships with their adult citizens.

I’m certainly not suggesting that governments cut themselves off from the public and refuse to respond to queries and complaints. Transparency is necessarily the product of successful communications methodologies, and I’m all for transparency.

Instead, what I’d like to discuss is a couple of official federal government policy initiatives designed to control content that’s perceived as disinformation.

As I’ve written, The federal government spends millions a year outsourcing some communication work to private sector press release agencies. As these things go, the aggregated total doesn’t amount to all that much money. But when you consider how every department probably maintains its own in-house communications officers, we’re probably looking at just the tip of the iceberg.

This post isn’t about costs, though. I’m much more interested in figuring out what all those communications officers actually do with themselves. Reading the government’s Countering Disinformation: A Guidebook for Public Servants document should be helpful here.

It seems that the government expects departments to regularly monitor media - and social media - to quickly identify trends in public conversations. Civil servants are encouraged to conduct public environment analyses to help them understand the “broader context in which disinformation is spreading”.

Armed with this awareness, they’re expected to assess content for authenticity, evaluate any potential for harm, and proactively counter disinformation using public awareness campaigns and “debunking” exercises.

As a result, Canada’s internet neighbourhood is filled with publications from multiple departments and agencies promoting digital best-practices, including: