Canadian Heritage Committee on March 29th, 2021

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

One of the problems we see too is that people.... We understand that people are just not interested in paying for information on the Internet. It's one of the big problems that news outlets have.

How much of a dramatic shift would it be in the Facebook model if there were a monthly fee or an annual fee to be a member of Facebook?

[Kevin Chan]

We have thought about it from time to time, and certainly that's been suggested to us by stakeholders.

The challenge is that when you think about it from our perspective, with over two billion users around the world, it would likely be the case that we would end up creating different classes of users: ones who could afford it and ones who couldn't, or ones who could afford it easily and ones who would have a very difficult time affording it. That doesn't seem like the best way to build community, which is what we're trying to do in terms of our mission.

When you talk about people in the global south, they actually use Facebook for many different reasons, some of them economic—

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Sorry, I'm going to cut you off.

You could have different rates in different parts of the world. Pharmaceutical companies charge different prices for their drugs in different parts of the world, based on the market.

Part of the problem we have here in Canada is that because it's free—and I think, in part, because everyone is trapped at home and bored and frustrated by COVID-19—it's a general dumbing down of society. People post stupid things and then they spread like wildfire. If it were actually a service whereby you had to pay even a nominal fee, maybe it would cut down on that kind of stupidity.

[Kevin Chan]

Sir, that is a very good point, and we've heard it from others. I'm happy to make that point internally after this meeting.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thanks.

That's all I have, Monsieur Chair, unless I have lots more time. I can ramble on some more, but you probably don't want that.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Alain Rayes]

Thank you, Mr. Aitchison.

We will begin another five-minute round of questions. Mr. Housefather, you have the floor.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe I made my point in the last round. I could continue to ask questions that only Mr. Zuckerberg or people at other levels can answer, but I won't keep doing that.

I want to end with the point that Mr. Zuckerberg is the CEO, the majority shareholder and the chairman of the board of a U.S. company that operates in Canada, and the fact that he doesn't happen to be a Canadian citizen, or isn't resident in Canada, doesn't shield him from the obligation, in my view, to testify before this committee when we request it.

I strongly request that you convey that back, because it entirely changed the way I was going to question Facebook today.

I'm going to go back to a question.

My colleague Mr. Champoux raised the issue of moderators. You said, Mr. Chan, that you could not tell us whether there were French-speaking moderators in Quebec or in Canada. However, during Mr. Zuckerberg's testimony before the U.S. Congress, we learned that you were going to increase the number of Spanish moderators in the United States. We are not just talking about moderators who speak Spanish, but Spanish moderators who are in the United States.

So, why don't you tell us if there are any French-speaking moderators in Canada?

[Kevin Chan]

Again, our approach is not to reveal where our content moderators are.

As you will know, Mr. Housefather, they are part of a 35,000-member strong safety and security team around the world. We work hard to ensure the safety and security of our community.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I understand and appreciate that, Mr. Chan, but your CEO, before Congress, committed not to establishing Spanish-speaking moderators but increasing the number of Spanish-speaking moderators in the United States, so he disclosed that there were Spanish-speaking moderators in the United States.

I don't understand how we cannot know if there are French-speaking moderators in Canada. We're not asking who they are or where they are. I would request that you get back to the committee in writing if you are able to disclose whether there are or are not French-speaking moderators in Canada.

Let me move to another question.

You said that all Facebook policies are published, and I appreciate that. However, you have guidelines that you give to the content moderators that are not published. The Guardian, on March 23, [Technical difficulty—Editor] moderators, and noted that it spelled out differentiations between protections for private and public individuals.

In Quebec, several mayors have said they will not run in the next election because they have received threats on social media.

[Technical difficulty—Editor] that, given that people in Quebec now are not running for re-election because of social media, I'm a bit concerned that the guidelines seem to specify that private individuals cannot be targeted with calls for death on Facebook, but public figures simply cannot be purposely exposed to such calls.

Therefore, it would be interpreted that it is legitimate under Facebook's harassment policies to call for the death of a public figure as long as the user does not tag them in the post. Are these reports about these policies accurate in terms of the guidelines being given to moderators?

[Kevin Chan]

I don't know about those specific guidelines because, again, you'll appreciate, sir, that I haven't seen those specific guidelines.

I can tell you, though, that our posture with respect to public figures and private citizens is consistent with the way the law has evolved in terms of the different thresholds that would pertain to a private citizen versus a public figure. That's just the reality of how the law has evolved and how the courts have interpreted these thresholds for a public figure versus a private citizen.

I would definitely say that in all cases where there is a credible threat to an individual, whether public or private, we obviously work with law enforcement to make sure we get to the bottom of it, and we take it very seriously.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I understand that, but if somebody posts, “I plan to hang Anthony Housefather,” versus “Anthony Housefather should be hanged,” I'm not really sure that I see the great distinction there in terms of the potential to persuade somebody who might have very bad intentions to go do something.

I really don't understand why a call for death against a public figure would not be something that would be in violation of Facebook policies and that content moderators would be instructed to take down.

I would request, again, Mr. Chan, if you can, that you consider whether you can deposit with the committee the guidelines that are provided to moderators that are referred to in the Guardian article.

I'd like to now get to a BuzzFeed report from February 21.

BuzzFeed reported—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Alain Rayes]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather, but I have to stop you.

Everybody is working so well that, if we keep up this pace, we'll be able to complete all four rounds of questions. So I'm going to continue to watch the time.

Without further delay, I will turn the floor over to Mr. Waugh for five minutes.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chan, should government regulate the Internet? I asked Ian Scott that question.

What's happening today on Facebook is that we have many former broadcasters doing shows right now and charging advertising dollars. They don't actually have a broadcasting licence, yet they have shows, coast to coast in this country, using your platform, and they're not regulated at all.

Mr. Scott, who is chair of the CRTC, said that this is one thing they're going to look [Technical difficulty—Editor], but the CRTC would need more money from the Treasury Board if this is going to happen.

Can I hear your thoughts on your platform's actually being a broadcaster right now in almost every city in this country?

[Kevin Chan]

I'm not aware of that, sir.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

How could you not be? Come on.

[Kevin Chan]

I have to tell you that's not what I follow on Facebook. Please don't misunderstand my reaction as trying to discount what you're saying. Personally, that's just not my jam, if you will.

I'm not aware, but obviously it is definitely the case that Facebook allows for all sorts of people, big and small, to be able to livestream and to be able to communicate with whoever else they want to on Facebook. That's the value of Facebook. That's why people come back to Facebook.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Who's going to regulate this? They're taking money from newspapers. They're taking money from traditional broadcasters, and I would say hundreds of thousands of dollars are being taken by platforms like yours. They're using you as an avenue. Sit here and look. Every day there's a one-hour show from here, and there's a two-hour show from here, with advertisers, and yet they're not regulated. Should they be regulated?

[Kevin Chan]

Mr. Waugh, I have to say, going back to what Mr. Shields was saying—and I don't want to misunderstand what you're saying—if what you are describing is an individual going on Facebook to livestream something, technically speaking that is speech, so we want to be careful on our end to make sure we are not imposing certain conditions on people's speech that isn't in the area of harm, danger and security, which is what our committee standards are for.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

It's happening every day. There are sports shows; there are entertainment shows, and they're charging for advertising. I don't think they're paying your company for it.

We had the CRTC in on Friday, and all of a sudden Mr. Scott said they might be looking at controlling the Internet because of what is going on, and his second point was about needing to go to the Treasury Board to look at this.

As an opposition member, I'm thinking, all of a sudden, how much do you need in order to control the Internet?

[Kevin Chan]

I understand the sentiment, Mr. Waugh. I would just say, from personal experience, Marc referred to the digital news innovation challenge, which was really the first program we did back in 2017 to support news. There is a team there—one of the five companies we helped incubate—called The Gist. At the time it was a team of three young professionals who decided to create a news outlet for sports focused on women. It's a feminist publisher focused on interpreting sports for women. They were from Toronto. They used platforms like Facebook—and, I suspect, other platforms as well—to grow. They are doing remarkably well, three or four years on, across North America. That was the power, I think, of the open Internet.

I agree with you that if they're doing a lot of this on Facebook and other streaming platforms that are open to user-generated content, presumably that means they're in competition with others. However, in some ways, I think it is a wonderful example to see in terms of innovation—in terms of, effectively, a small business finding success and being able to challenge incumbents online.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I have one question, as my time is ending here. Did Facebook learn anything by shutting down for three days in Australia?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Alain Rayes]

Thank you, Mr. Waugh.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Alain Rayes]

I also thank Mr. Chan for his responses.

Ms. Ien, you have the floor.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. You're doing an excellent job today.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

Mr. Chan, I want to start with you and focus on hate speech, if I might, for a bit. We have seen what has happened with anti-Asian hate. A lot of it was born on social media and ramped up because of that. It has been reported that per capita there is more anti-Asian hate and there are more incidents thereof in Canada, in fact, than in the United States.

I'm just wondering, with regard to Facebook and how you run things, whether anything has changed. Have you ramped up efforts to curb that kind of hate?