from the how-global-is-that-internet dept
A Canadian tribunal’s $72,000 fine against X for refusing to globally remove non-consensual intimate images (NCII) exposes a fundamental tension that courts have been dodging for years: When can one country order worldwide content takedowns, and when should platforms comply regardless of legal compulsion?
Unfortunately, almost all the commentary on the case is ignoring those tensions and going for the easy layup of just framing it as “Elon Musk ignoring the law again.” That’s a fun framing, but it’s too easy for this particular case.
It actually presents two distinct questions that are getting dangerously conflated: whether Canada has jurisdiction to demand global removals, and whether X should remove credibly reported NCII as basic platform governance. Getting this distinction right matters—not just for this case, but for the future of cross-border content regulation.
The British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal apparently ordered X and other platforms to remove an intimate image of a woman identified as “TR” back in March. But X chose to geofence the content rather than delete it entirely—blocking Canadian users from seeing it while leaving it accessible to the rest of the world. The tribunal wasn’t having it:
Regehr dismissed that argument, noting X’s position would call into question whether British Columbia’s law overstepped the province’s authority under Canada’s constitution.
“I have no authority to consider constitutional arguments,” he wrote. “The question about X’s compliance is a very simple one. I ordered internet intermediaries, which includes X, to remove the intimate image. X received the order, but it did not remove the intimate image. Instead, it did something less. X did not comply with the protection order.”
This hits on a fundamental tension that’s been brewing in internet law for decades: can one country’s courts order global takedowns, and when should they?
Canada actually has some history here. In the troubling landmark Equustek case, the Supreme Court of Canada made a radical departure from traditional jurisdictional limits, ruling that BC courts could issue worldwide injunctions against Google, requiring global de-indexing of websites. The Court essentially argued that the borderless nature of the internet justifies borderless judicial authority—a breathtaking expansion of territorial jurisdiction that upended decades of international law principles.
But that decision was controversial precisely because of its extraterritorial reach. Google challenged the order in U.S. courts, where judges found it conflicted with U.S. law and principles of international comity. The result? A jurisdictional standoff that highlighted how messy cross-border enforcement gets when courts start issuing global orders.
The jurisdictional issues the Equustek case raised haven’t been resolved—they’ve just been papered over by companies generally complying rather than fighting every single order. But X’s approach here suggests those tensions are far from settled.
This case actually presents two distinct issues that shouldn’t be conflated:
First, the jurisdictional question: Should a Canadian provincial tribunal be able to order a global takedown? X’s argument that it would comply within Canadian jurisdiction but not globally is actually pretty reasonable from a legal standpoint. Countries generally can’t impose their laws extraterritorially, and expecting every platform to comply with the most restrictive jurisdiction’s rules worldwide creates a race to the bottom for global speech.
Second, the trust and safety question: Separate from what Canada can legally compel, there’s the other issue: should X be taking down credibly reported NCII as part of basic platform governance? Here the answer seems pretty obvious—most platforms do remove NCII when properly reported because it’s harmful, often illegal, and violates their terms of service.
The tribunal seemed to dodge the first question entirely, with the judge explicitly saying, “I have no authority to consider constitutional arguments.” But dismissing jurisdictional concerns doesn’t make them go away—it just kicks the can down the road.
X’s geofencing response was legally defensible but ethically questionable. The tribunal’s global order was ethically motivated but legally problematic. Neither approach really serves the interests of victims or the broader internet ecosystem.
What makes this case particularly notable is how rare such jurisdictional standoffs have become. The shift toward comprehensive regulatory frameworks—from the EU’s Digital Services Act to various national online harms bills—has largely eliminated the need for case-by-case civil litigation. Platforms now face systematic compliance requirements rather than ad hoc court orders.
But X’s willingness to fight this particular battle suggests we may be entering a new phase where at least some platforms are more selective about which jurisdictional claims they’ll accept. The question, though, is where this all ends up. And whether or not the idea of a global, not fractured, internet can survive.
Filed Under: canada, elon musk, equustek, global takedowns, jurisdiction, ncii
Companies: x
