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British Columbia’s Attorney General says she’s “deeply disturbed” that the 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 firm is challenging a “clear order” from B.C.’s Civil Resolution Tribunal to remove an image from its platform for violating the province’s Intimate Images Protection Act.
The tribunal ordered X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, to remove the image after a transgender complainant from B.C. — whose name is anonymized in court documents — applied for a protection order under the law earlier this year.
The company says in a petition filed in B.C. Supreme Court this month that it “promptly complied” with the tribunal’s order by blocking access to the offending image in Canada, but not elsewhere, in a practice known as “geo-blocking.”
The tribunal issued a penalty of a $100,000 against the company in September for failing to delete the image “globally,” saying it was insufficient to block the content in Canada but allow it to be seen in other jurisdictions.
X’s court petition says a “global blocking order” would undermine the sovereignty of foreign nations and “threaten free speech everywhere,” and it wants the B.C. Supreme Court to quash the penalty.
The company’s petition says global blocking orders, if upheld, would hypothetically allow hostile foreign nations to demand removal of statements made by a Canadian prime minister or premier.
“If courts in different countries can issue global blocking orders based on their own laws, it would result in a situation 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 that is allowed by the most restrictive country in the world.”
The company alleges such orders would “set a dangerous precedent that would legitimize practices of authoritarian governments, which do not fully value the rights to freedom of speech and access to information.”
The complainant filed a response calling the company’s petition an “abuse of process and a collateral attack” on the tribunal’s lawful order.
Sharma said in a statement released Thursday that the province will join the case to defend the intimate images law.
“Under B.C. law, these images must be removed when ordered to do so, without exceptions,” the attorney general said.
“Blocking access only within our borders is not enough. Survivors deserve real protection, not half measures.”
