Thread by @ezralevant

1. Governments hide things by announcing them on Friday afternoons.

Last night, Trudeau announced he now requires YouTubers, livestreamers & podcasters (including those streaming on X/Twitter) to “register” with the government.

It’s part of his Internet censorship strategy.

https://twitter.com/crtceng/status/1707818973880823935

2. This shocking decision was not debated, let alone voted on, by Parliament. It’s a decree, like Castro would do. Trudeau used his hand-picked appointees at the CRTC — the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission — to announce this hijacking.

3. The CRTC is a relic of the age of radio and TV, created in 1976. It’s been for more than a decade — other than for handing out lucrative monopolies to Canada’s cell phone cartel. Canadians literally pay the highest phone rates in the world: research.rewheel.fi/downloads/The_…

4. The CRTC is intensely political. It killed off the Sun News Network — dubbed “Fox News North” — in 2015. Sun News wanted the same regulatory treatment as the two left-wing all-news channels, and the CRTC denied it. nationalpost.com/news/canada/we…

5. I used to work at Sun News; out of its ashes we built Rebel News. We were rebelling against three things — Media Party groupthink; expensive TV infrastructure; and CRTC regulation. On the Internet we were free. Within a few years we had a much larger reach than Sun News had.

6. Other online news sources have grown in Canada, too, as the legacy media have shrunk. News outlets like True North & Western Standard. And of course marquee names like Dr. Jordan Peterson, a global talent who just happens to be based in Canada and occasionally tweaks Trudeau.

7. Trudeau’s approach since taking power has been to subsidize the dying Regime Media. He gives $1.5B/year to the CBC state broadcaster and annual bail-outs to the rest of the media. For about thirty seconds they objected. Now they beg for more: cbc.ca/amp/1.5147761

8. Despite sending billions of dollars to what Trudeau calls “trustworthy” media, fewer people than ever watch regime news. And it hasn’t helped working journalists — executives pocket big bonuses while reporters are laid off: unifor.org/news/all-news/…

9. By the way, the bailout media don’t just fail despite Trudeau’s cash. They fail because of it. Very few news organizations permit critical coverage of Trudeau anymore, and people can sense it. I mean, here’s the state broadcaster’s chief Ottawa reporter.

@CBCNews 10. Rebel News started in my living room just eight years ago but 41% of Canadians already trust us MORE than age-old legacy media like the CBC, CTV, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. Here’s a Léger poll showing that and other interesting things: RebelPoll.com

@CBCNews 11. My point is: Trudeau is a control freak when it comes to the news media. He routinely bans journalists he doesn’t like from attending press conferences or even attending election debates. Twice the Federal a court has had to order him to accredit us: thestar.com/politics/feder…

@CBCNews 12. But despite his bans, and his massive subsidies to his state broadcasters and the bail-out journalists at the newspapers, independent media led by citizen journalists continue to thrive and legacy media continues to decline.

That’s where last night’s decree comes in.

13. Trudeau recently rammed through Bill C-11. It put the entire Internet under the control of his CRTC appointees. Here's the text of C-11:

One of their new powers is shocking: Trudeau can order Facebook/Google/YouTube to alter their algorithms.parl.ca/DocumentViewer…

14. S. 9.1(1)(e) says: "The Commission may... make orders imposing conditions... including... the presentation of programs and programming services for selection by the public, including the showcasing and the discoverability of Canadian programs..."

That's a search algorithm.

15. YouTube, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., already boost or throttle content based on their own criteria, and it's usually hostile to conservatives or contrarians, especially on issues like vaccines or transgenderism. But this new law puts Trudeau in charge.

16. Trudeau has now given himself the power to alter the "discoverability" of Internet content. He already said he's going to decide which news is "trusted" and which isn't -- he said that in his very first media bail-out announcement: theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

17. That 2018 story reported:

The government said the package will aim to help “trusted” news organizations, but will leave it to the media industry to define the application of the new initiatives.

That was five years ago. Trudeau has lost patience. He's now going to decide.

18. Trudeau introduced a news license called a QCJO licence: Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization. Trudeau gave himself the power to give or deny that licence:

Until now, that licence mainly meant you got tax relief. Now it means something else.canada.ca/en/revenue-age…

19. Here’s Trudeau’s cabinet minister, Steven Guilbeault, three years ago, taking about forcing journalists to get a news licence.

20. There was almost no pushback from the regime media, because they knew what it really meant — they’d get the licence, because Trudeau “trusts” them, but independent competitors would be shut down. It would ban their upstart competitors.

21. There used to be some independent journalism NGOs in Canada, but they have been transformed into grant-seeking lobby groups who exist only to extract more bail-outs from Trudeau. They’d never criticize him — they are in perpetual begging mode and it shows.

22. Rebel News applied for a QCJO news licence and we were turned down. Laughably, Trudeau's bureaucrats claim less than 1% of what we publish is news. I'm not even sure how that's possible, but that was their excuse. We're suing them -- learn more here: rebelnews.com/rebel_news_is_…

23. Friday's announcement demanding that live streamers register with the govt is shocking but not surprising. Trudeau has been working on coopting the media since he was elected. He's about half-way through his plan. 99% of journalists are on the inside, so they're silent.

24. Bill C-11 gave Trudeau power over the Internet, including altering search algorithms. C-18 gave Trudeau the power to collect a "link" tax from Facebook and Google, and to use it for a slush fund for "trusted" media. Those are both law and there's more coming.

25. Trudeau introduced another censorship bill, called C-36. It died on the order paper, but he says it will be back. It includes secret trials for Internet "hate", and punishments including house arrest, ankle monitors and even jail: rebelnews.com/bill_c36_expla…

26. The final part in Trudeau's censorship plan is the most draconian of all, called the "Online Harms Act." In a confidential memo, Twitter said it was worse than anything they'd seen outside China, Iran & North Korea. And that was pre-Elon Musk Twitter! michaelgeist.ca/wp-content/upl…

27. In this final bill, Trudeau proposes to give himself what his cabinet calls the "nuclear" option, namely the power to actually ban entire websites from existing in Canada -- like China does with its "Great Firewall". You can read more about it here: rebelnews.com/the_worst_part…

28. So that's what's happening. That's what Jordan Peterson is concerned about:

You don't force journalists to "register" with the government unless you plan to regulate them, punish them, throttle them, ban them and even jail them.

https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1708180204219154645

29. It's not just Jordan Peterson who will be forced to register, because of his Canadian residence. American broadcasters with Canadian audiences will, also. Nineteen out of the top 30 podcasts in Canada are American: They're covered by this decree.chartable.com/charts/itunes/…

30. It will be interesting to see if American podcasters will save us, because the Canadian media won't, for the reasons outlined above.

Forcing American media to "register" is anathema to the First Amendment, and likely a violation of the USMCA trade agreement.

31. Trudeau doesn't care about much. He's known as a shallow man with no policy depth. He's 100% about spin and controlling the message. He has put forward not one but FOUR censorship bills; that's how obsessed he is. He really is like his father figure, isn't he?

32. We know that Trudeau has a hatred for Rebel News. He says so — look at his abusive answer to Alexa Lavoie, mere hours after the Federal Court found that he had violated our constitutional rights and ordered him to accredit us at this debate:

33. But as long as we have breath in us we’ll fight for freedom.

Sign our petition at to fight against Trudeau’s Internet plans. And if you can chip in a few bucks to help us fight Trudeau in court, please do. Thanks.StopTheCensorship.ca