Telecom Trends

A little off my normal telecom focus, there is an interesting case that I'd like to look at today: a complaint against Radio McGill, station call letters CKUT.

Why? Partly because I have a new connection to McGill University and partly because of my general concern with understanding allegations of transmitting illegal content.

The CRTC issued a broadcasting decision a week ago that reviewed a complaint about CKUT playing Banging In The Nails, performed by an alternative band, The Tiger Lillies. The complainants contended that the song was distasteful, hateful and "gleefully mocked" the Crucifixion. They also argued that Radio McGill, in airing a song that glorified hatred, contempt and sadistic violence towards a venerated religious figure, contravened both the Broadcasting Act and the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Section 3(b) of the Radio Regulations prohibits broadcasting programming that contains:

any abusive comment that, when taken in context, tends to or is likely to expose an individual or a group or class of individuals to hatred or contempt on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or mental or physical disability.

The Commission appeared to place considerable weight on the nature of the station, as a campus-based broadcaster. As such, the CRTC was putting an emphasis on looking at the context of the broadcast in question. The CRTC noted that the primary purpose of such campus radio stations is to offer programming different in style from other stations.

Although it does not support or necessarily agree with the message transmitted by the lyrics of the song, the Commission has an obligation to respect freedom of expression. Based on the above analysis, the Commission considers that the decision as to whether the song in question is offensive is, in the final analysis, a matter of taste.

Why does the CRTC get involved in such cases? It is worthwhile looking at a comment I received privately in response to yesterday's posting about Montreal-based Epifora hosting a Seattle area pedophile's website:

In a society that values a vigorous freedom of expression, attempts to suppress this kind of speech with the criminal law will inevitably be seen as overreaching by the state. And frankly, if we ever get to the stage where this is the most offensive and harmful child abuse related material available on the web, I will be ecstatic.

There are, however, less clumsy and heavy handed ways than the criminal law to approach problems of this type. Through non-criminal regulatory schemes, licencing standards, industry codes of conduct, clauses in service contracts and business mission statements, it is possible to take a stand that this type of material is unwelcome because it inappropriately sexualizes children. These avenues allow us to be more discerning in our judgment of content because we are not trying to send the speaker to jail, we are only declining to afford him a podium.

A regulator can examine context. As the CRTC noted in the McGill case, listeners to campus radio stations should expect to hear music that is out of the ordinary, which does not preclude content that may be shocking to some. In that context, it would not be unusual for programming to be able to run more close to the edge than it might tolerate from mainstream broadcasters.

Is there a context to support the pedophile websites? How should Canadians deal with an ISP that is a magnet for the pedophile community?

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CRTC, CKUT, McGill, hate