Legal Fights Against Noise Pollution, Toll-Free Hotline For Victims Of Human Trafficking, Facebook Refuses To Remove False Content

Hosted by Ahmad Moujtahed

Stories by Ahmad Moujtahed

 

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LOCAL

Residents of the West Island of Montreal joined the legal fight against Aéroport de Montréal, NAV Canada and Transport Canada demanding financial compensation due to damages caused by aircraft noise pollution.

In April 2018, a group of homeowners living along Trudeau airport’s flight paths, namely residents of Saint Laurent and Ahunstic-Cartierville, filed a lawsuit to which Quebec Superior Court judge gave the green light.

The lawsuit demanded financial compensation regarding aircraft noise pollution. Many residents claimed that they were regularly woken up by the sounds of planes flying overhead, with noise levels reaching up to 90 decibels.

According to Les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau, up to 300,000 Montrealers living along the flight path are subjected to aircraft noise pollution. While compensation would be nice, what most residents want is for airport authorities to strictly enforce the take off and landing curfew from midnight to 7 a.m.

 

NATIONAL

The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking launched a national hotline to help victims and survivors of human trafficking.

The line is meant to help victims of human trafficking by connecting them with community resources and law enforcement officers. The line is also open to members of the public who want to learn more about the issue.

The toll-free hotline will be available 24 hours a day throughout the year. Call takers will be able to field queries in more than 200 languages, including a number of Indigenous languages.

The line can be reached at: 1-833-900-1010.

 

INTERNATIONAL

In the International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy and Democracy, Facebook announced that it will not remove any false or misleading content from the platform during Canada’s upcoming federal election campaign

Facebook’s decision to refuse to take down false content was a response to pointed questions about why Facebook is allowing a doctored video of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which was slowed down to make her sound impaired, to be shared across its platform.

Representatives for the social media giant said that Facebook has taken a position to inform people when content is fake, but it’s not Facebook’s role to decide the line between “free speech” and “censorship.”

Facebook representatives also bore the committee's frustration as to why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg did not appear before the committee.