EXCLUSIVE: Activist pushing government to police online hate and punish platforms

PENTICTON — Exclusive access-to-information records show longtime "anti-hate activist" Bernie Farber advised the federal government that social-media companies should face "tangible consequences" and that government, not the platforms, must enforce rules against "online hatred."Farber, founding chair emeritus of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, delivered the recommendations during a closed-door meeting of the Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety with Heritage Minister Marc Miller on March 11 according to the documents obtained exclusively by Western Standard.“They should not be allowed to police themselves, the government should do it,” Farber said, according to the departmental summary..The documents confirm what many already suspected: Bernie Farber, the anti-hate activist who in 2022 described the Freedom Convoy as seeding “the worst display of Nazi and racist propaganda” Canada had ever seen, is once again a key federal expert advising on online safety and anti-hate legislation..But the records also provide new insight into what Farber is specifically advocating.On March 11, roughly one month after the Tumbler Ridge school shooting, Farber told the Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety and Heritage Minister Marc Miller that platforms should not be allowed to police themselves.In other words, Farber is calling for the government to take a larger and more direct role in policing online speech.Oddly, while the departmental notes identify several areas of concern — including child sexual exploitation, AI-enabled harms, private messaging, gaming platforms, and the spread of hatred — they do not provide a categorical or clearly defined definition of what constitutes “online hate” or “hatred.” Farber’s recommendations treat the concept as self-evident and urgent, yet the document itself leaves the boundaries entirely unclear. No definition or examples of "online hate" are provided.The appointment of Farber to such a consultation role carries a particular irony for many Canadians critical of the Liberal government.Farber is widely regarded by free-speech advocates and Freedom Convoy supporters as one of the more prominent voices who advanced what they consider exaggerated and, in some cases, inaccurate claims about the 2022 protests — including the widespread amplification of Nazi-flag imagery whose origins also remain unknown..Reappointing Farber as a leading consultant to help design new rules defining harmful content, mandating platform action, tackling misinformation, and potentially restricting social-media access for young people is being widely regarded as problematic given his record of expansive and partisan definitions of what constitutes “online hate.”That record was on display earlier this year. In a June 2026 report on the Tumbler Ridge shooting, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network — Farber’s flagship organization — named a Western Standard reporter (the author of this very article in fact) as engaging in hateful speech for referring to the shooter by the pronouns that correspond with his biological sex..There is also the financial dimension.Farber and the Canadian Anti-Hate Network have received significant public funding and consulting contracts in recent years..Federal records show the organization has taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars from Canadian Heritage and Public Safety Canada since 2020 for anti-hate and far-right research projects.School boards, including York Region and Ottawa-Carleton, have issued sole-source or direct contracts to Farber and the Network for staff training sessions.It's a revolving-door configuration: organizations that benefit from expanded anti-hate and online-safety regimes are then invited to help design those regimes.The previous Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63, died on the Order Paper when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025. It had already drawn sustained criticism from civil-liberties groups, opposition parties, and free-speech advocates over its broad definitions of harmful content, the sweeping powers proposed for a new Digital Safety Commission, and the risk of chilling legitimate political expression. Rather than start with a fresh set of advisors, the government reconvened largely the same panel in 2026 and continued to remunerate its members under contract..Farber’s specific recommendations — that platforms must not police themselves, that government should impose real costs for allowing “hatred” to spread, and that stronger enforcement is required — sit uneasily with the facts of the Tumbler Ridge case. The central failure there involved an AI chatbot that engaged in extended conversations about violent scenarios without triggering a report to police.Expanding government power to regulate “hate” on social media platforms does not directly address the distinct problem of AI systems that interact privately with users and the thresholds for mandatory reporting of credible threats of violence.Many of those exact questions — what OpenAI knew, when it knew it, and why no report was made to authorities — are now the subject of legal action. The British Columbia provincial government has retained counsel and is preparing to pursue OpenAI in court over its failure to notify law enforcement prior to the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School shooting.

EXCLUSIVE: Activist pushing government to police online hate and punish platforms

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