Evidence of meeting #22 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 recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Is he aware that there are 25 million Facebook users in Canada?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
There are 24 million Canadian users.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
It sounds like a substantial number. This committee has now asked to hear from Mr. Zuckerberg on a couple of occasions. The ethics committee did as well. He has refused our invitations. It sounds like you are unable to answer the questions I wanted to ask, because they were individual issues that only Mr. Zuckerberg himself could have answered.
I would like to ask you, on behalf of this committee, to please convey to Mr. Zuckerberg that we would like to hear from him.
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
I will pass on the message when I get the chance.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Alain Rayes
Thank you.
I must interrupt you, Mr. Housefather. The six minutes are up. I'm trying to be rigorous with everyone.
Without further delay, I recognize my colleague Mr. Champoux.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I commend your thoroughness.
I welcome the representatives from Facebook today.
Mr. Chan, do you consider Facebook to have any responsibility for the content that is shared on your subscribers' news feeds?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
Yes, we have a responsibility as to how the platform is used. We have a responsibility to follow the laws here in—
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
I'm talking about content. Do you feel you have a responsibility regarding the content?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
Mr. Champoux, I think I just answered you by saying that we have a responsibility to follow Canadian law with respect to content. We also have a responsibility to follow our own rules, which are called community standards, which apply to content—
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
On this topic—we talked about this when you were last here—you have moderators all over the place, humans who follow up on the algorithms that control the content that is being delivered on your platform. Last time, I asked you if you had any French-speaking moderators based in Quebec or in Canada. You answered that you were not able to answer me and that it could even put the lives of these people in danger.
Do you still believe that, Mr. Chan?
If not, can you tell me if you have any French-speaking moderators in Quebec and Canada?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
We don't reveal the location of moderators across the world. As I indicated last time, we have to cover off over 50 languages around the world and every time zone available in the world, so we locate individuals and teams based on these considerations.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
I will interpret that response as a no. So I have to conclude that you don't have any francophone moderators in Quebec. It was a simple question that you could have answered with yes or no, but you are telling me that you do not want to disclose this information. That's all right.
Mr. Chan, you remember the sad events in Christchurch. I was asking you if you control the content that goes out on your platform, because we're discussing what information Facebook allows, and you have some control over what is broadcast on your platform. For 17 minutes, the Christchurch killer broadcast his actions live on the Facebook platform.
Do you think you could have stopped that broadcast at that time?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
We were able to detect it and remove it, ultimately, as you point out. Of course we regret the tragedy and we regret that we were not even faster. We have obviously learned a lot from that terrible incident, not just at Facebook. To be fair, we've worked across the sector to build systems and protocols—with governments as well—to ensure that the entire system actually works, not just on Facebook, but across companies, across platforms and with governments. We've built these protocols to move much faster should the regrettable and unfortunate thing happen again.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
So you have indeed acknowledged these events and you have tried your best to correct the situation to prevent it from happening again. That's what I'm hearing.
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
Yes.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
All right.
I want to talk briefly about the phenomenon of disinformation. There was news last week that Facebook has made progress in fighting disinformation. You removed 1.3 billion fake accounts, if I'm not mistaken, in the last quarter of 2020.
Is that correct?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
Yes—billions.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
This is no small feat, and I congratulate you.
However, real accounts are still active. Last week, an article in La Presse pointed out that 12 people are responsible for 73% of the anti-vaccination content on Facebook. Often, this is done on the basis of unreliable information. It is downright disinformation. Mr. Zuckerberg, your boss, has said he has no intention of committing to removing these 12 accounts that generate 73% of the anti-vaccination content.
Can you explain the rationale for this position to me?
Global Director and Head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada, Facebook Inc.
To be honest, sir, I'm not entirely familiar with the specific case you're talking about. I can tell you more generally that our posture is in fact to remove harmful misinformation about COVID vaccines. I myself have spent many hours working with our content policy team to frame up the actual content policy that would govern speech about vaccines. We have already removed significant amounts. One of our latest statistics is that in February we removed 12 million pieces of content related to COVID vaccine misinformation.
The challenge, sir, is one that you'll appreciate. We do this with public health agencies and public health experts around the world, and they'll tell you the same thing. The challenge is that we need to strike a balance between people's ability to speak their minds and share their own feelings and ideas and thinking about things, and preventing harmful misinformation about COVID vaccines from being spread.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
If I showed you the 12 accounts in question and demonstrated that they were responsible for so much disinformation, what would your decision be, Mr. Chan? Would you hesitate to...
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Alain Rayes
Mr. Champoux, your time is up.
However, since the witnesses are here for two hours, you will have another opportunity to ask your questions.
Conservative
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for taking this on and doing such a good job today.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for joining us today at committee and agreeing to answer some of our questions. I'm very concerned when I hear the inability of some of the witnesses to answer those questions. I would echo what my colleague Mr. Housefather said, that it seems very important that Mr. Zuckerberg agree to come and share his thoughts with this committee, because unfortunately we are not able to get some of the answers we need.
I have to start by saying that people are increasingly concerned about the power of the web giants, the ravages of the spread of online hate speech, the impact of unfair competition of these giants on our local media, and the total lack of justice when people work hard to pay their fair share and multinational web companies do everything to circumvent the rules. People are right to have these fears, and when they learn about the cozy relationship between these web giants and the Liberal government....
I would like to remind you that we are here because we discovered that Minister Guilbeault's department, in charge of regulating the web giants, agreed to share a job offer to Facebook. This lack of ethics is even more unacceptable when we know that this government continues to protect Facebook's profit at the expense of the survival of our local media; continues to protect the profits of the web giants by refusing to make them pay their fair share at the expense of our workers and small businesses who do pay their fair share; and continues to delay regulating the platforms at the expense of the people and communities who suffer from online hate. The NDP will continue to press the Liberal government to end this favourable treatment of the web giants and protect the interests of Canadians.
I guess I would like to start by asking some questions about some of those ethical issues I've raised.
In your last appearance at committee, Mr. Chan, when asked if you had ever asked political staff in a ministerial cabinet to circulate a job offer for Facebook, you replied that you didn't think so. Could you now answer that same question with a yes or a no? If it's a yes, which ministerial cabinet?