Evidence of meeting #12 for Canadian Heritage in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was facebook.
A video is available from Parliament.
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
There are 35,000 people who work on content moderation at Facebook. Yes, they do play an important role.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
You'd agree of course that nuance is important. It's important for people to understand the language the post was made in and the political realities of that country when they assess whether something violates the policies. Is that correct?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
Correct. That is why you have a public policy team in Canada, sir.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Of the 35,000 people who do content moderation, how many of them are based in Canada?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
I'm not sure that I'm able to give that answer. As I indicated, I think what you're asking is who at Facebook actually is making sure they understand the nuances, for example, in Quebec where you represent, but also elsewhere in the country.
In fact, in terms of the public policy team in Canada, while many have speculated about where we spend most of our time, I am pleased to share with you that the team in Canada is actually the tip of the spear, if you will, on understanding these things. We are the ones who bring back the local, political and cultural context to ensure that our community standards are enforced accordingly.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Chan, I'm sure you'd understand that if Mr. Zuckerberg were before the U.S. Congress and were asked how many of the content moderators were based in the United States and wasn't able to give an answer—for example, I could argue that probably fewer than 100 and probably fewer than 50 of the content moderators who have a lot of discretion are based in Canada—I think you'd find that unacceptable. I would make a request that, going forward, Facebook tell head office that we need more content moderators in Canada.
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
We will undertake to do that.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chan.
Does Facebook control what is in my newsfeed, through your algorithms?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
No, sir. Actually, the way it works is that people positively connect—they choose to connect—with friends and family or to organizations; for example, perhaps to your Facebook page. Then what the newsfeed does is sort the content that individuals have already chosen to connect to.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I understand that. However, if for example I choose to search for “white supremacy” or for “swastikas”, Facebook is going to have an algorithm—or whatever you use, but I would think it's an algorithm—to determine that this is my area of interest. Would that not mean that Facebook would—on some occasions, and inadvertently, of course—be proactively amplifying hate speech or incitement to violence?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
I don't think so, but let me turn to Rachel, because she's been working very closely with CIJA and other organizations on this matter, concerning searching for these kinds of terms on Facebook.
Rachel, would you care to answer?
Policy Manager, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
That's a great question, MP Housefather.
What we have done, and we announced this on Holocaust Remembrance Day this week, is this. If you search for those kinds of terms, terms related to the Holocaust—“swastika”, “white supremacy”—you are going to get a notification that directs you to an off-site website developed with the World Jewish Congress, that gives you credible information on the Holocaust.
Users will, then, get a notification on Facebook that says to go to this site, and they will get good and accurate information on the Holocaust that explains what actually happened and the horrific events around the Holocaust. They will immediately have access to that information when they search for those kinds of terms.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
That's really appreciated.
I note, and I'm sure you guys read, that there was a Wall Street Journal article in 2016, which a number of my colleagues in the U.S. Congress referred to, that talked about an internal Facebook study. It said that 64% of members of violent groups became members because of the platform's recommendations.
Mr. Zuckerberg stated that Facebook had changed its policies and that Facebook was now proactively referring such threats to local law enforcement.
Would you be able to tell us how many threats, over the last 12 months, Facebook has proactively referred to local law enforcement in Canada?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
We don't have that information with us. I think much of this is actually available in our transparency reports concerning how many takedowns and requests we've done with law enforcement.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I couldn't find it, but if you could give it to the committee, that would be great.
On November 5, 2020, Steve Bannon, President Trump's former strategist, did a Facebook Live session in which he called for the beheadings of FBI director Christopher Wray and Dr. Fauci. The video was removed, but I saw yesterday that Steve Bannon is still allowed on Facebook.
Wouldn't you say that calling for the assassination of public figures would be grounds to remove somebody from your platform?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
Again, I did not see that report, so I cannot comment on it. Certainly, if you wish to forward it to us, we're happy to take a look at it.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.
I'd like to continue on a topic that Mr. Housefather brought up. I'd also like you to talk about your moderator teams, Mr. Chan.
Are there moderators in Quebec on the team that monitors Facebook activity? Is the mother tongue of these moderators French?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
I just want to be very clear. We don't surveil people. There's nobody watching when people are posting. We just want to be very clear, so that people don't misunderstand—
Bloc
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
Okay, thank you.
As I indicated earlier, we don't share the exact location of content moderators. You can appreciate that sometimes there is risk to their personal safety for a lot of these sorts of things. However, I can assure you, sir, that we have people who speak French and who are engaged in the community operations work you're referring to.
I want to be clear: it's the public policy team in the countries where we operate that helps to understand the cultural and political nuances of the countries in which we operate.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
So it may take some time before content that Quebeckers would find offensive is removed from Facebook, until your analysts who are not francophones or Quebeckers whose mother tongue is French can understand that it is offensive.
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
I don't know that it's exactly how it is. I think we have different ways of doing this. To get to your point, we use automated systems with some of the machine-learning technology that has actually been pioneered out of Canada. We have an AI lab in Montreal.
A lot of the groundbreaking work they're doing there is to automate these things, so there are some things we can remove very quickly: for example, terrorist content, child nudity and child exploitation. I can tell you that proactively these systems find and remove over 99% of that kind of content that people try to put on Facebook.
The second door, which is a door that we're talking about here, is where context and nuance are important. Where context is important, we have humans look at it. We don't want to have just an automated system remove something and deny someone's speech, just because, without understanding the context. There, we do rely on humans; and there, I agree with you that it does take some time, but I think we generally are pretty fast at it. We can always improve and certainly we are working on it, but again, the statistics are upwards of 99% proactive removal before any human sees it.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you.
I'd like to come back to the main reason for your appearance before us today.
Earlier, we talked to the minister and senior officials at the Department of Canadian Heritage. You don't seem to see a problem in the email exchange with that department regarding the job offer. You don't seem to see any reason for the discomfort we feel with such a close relationship.
If I understand correctly, you don't have a problem with that, do you? Would you do it again the same way?
