Professor Richard Moon commented on Ottawa's three-pronged response to the challenges (including online hate) that social media platforms and other online content providers pose to how media in Canada has been financed, regulated and policed in the past.
"Bigoted speech is always out there," said Professor Moon. "But the rise of social media as the principal platforms for personal and public engagement has helped hateful views of different kinds move more into the mainstream."
He pointed to algorithms on sites such as YouTube, owned by Google, that can wind up fanning inflammatory posts. "In order to try to maintain the attention of the viewer, they make suggestions of videos that are more and more extreme because people are often more and more engaged and it holds their attention," said Professor Moon.