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British Columbia’s Attorney General says she is “deeply disturbed” that social media company X has filed a legal challenge against an order to remove a non-consensual intimate image from the Internet.
Niki Sharma says the social media company is challenging a “clear order” from British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal to remove an image from its platform for violating the province’s Intimate Images Protection Act.
The court ordered X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, to remove the image after a transgender complainant from British Columbia, who is anonymous in court documents, sought a protective order under the law earlier this year.
The company says in a petition filed this month with the British Columbia Supreme Court that it “promptly complied” with the court’s order by blocking access to the offending image in Canada, but not elsewhere, in a practice known as “geo-blocking.”
The court levied a $100,000 fine against the company in September for failing to remove the image “globally,” saying it was insufficient to block the content in Canada but allow it to be viewed in other jurisdictions.
X’s court petition says a “global blocking order” would undermine the sovereignty of foreign nations and “threaten freedom of expression everywhere,” and he wants the British Columbia Supreme Court to overturn the sentence.
The company’s petition says global blocking orders, if upheld, would hypothetically allow hostile foreign nations to demand the removal of statements made by a Canadian prime minister or prime minister.
“If courts in different countries can issue global blocking orders based on their own laws, a situation would arise where the country with the most restrictive laws would dictate what content is available on the Internet,” the petition says.
“This would lead to a situation where the Internet displays only content permitted in the most restrictive country in the world.”
The company argues that such orders “would set a dangerous precedent that would legitimize the practices of authoritarian governments, which do not fully value the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.”
The plaintiff filed a response calling the company’s motion an “abuse of process and a collateral attack” on the court’s legal order.
Sharma said in a statement released Thursday that the province will join the case to defend the intimate images law.
“Under British Columbia law, these images must be removed when ordered to do so, with no exceptions,” the attorney general said.
“Blocking access only within our borders is not enough. Survivors deserve real protection, not half measures.”
