Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 28th, 2023

[Imran Ahmed]

I think that's the soft bigotry of low expectations that we've been attuned to expect from these companies.

In a sort of twisted irony, my organization has shown that Meta has allowed state-controlled media in authoritarian countries to pay for advertisements containing disinformation. In 2022, we published a report on Chinese state media buying Facebook ads to push disinformation about the conflict in Ukraine. While Meta is punishing Canadian news publishers by removing their ability to operate on the platform, it has profited from disinformation content paid for by state-controlled media elsewhere in the world.

The truth is that we've come to expect the platforms, and Meta in particular, to behave in the worst way possible. Not only are these regulations.... I think that Bill C-18 has its value, but one thing we've urged to Canadian ministers when I've met them, and we will urge today, is that there needs to be a more comprehensive framework that surrounds these platforms.

Ultimately, if they can find a way to squeeze out of taking responsibility and retaliate against anything that you do try, they will do so. That's why a more comprehensive framework—based on what we call the STAR framework at CCDH—includes safety by design, transparency of the algorithms, economics and a content-enforcement policy. It includes real, meaningful accountability to democratic bodies like your own and also shared responsibility for the harms they create. The negative externalities that these companies are imposing are an unbearable cost on our societies, whether that's destroying the news media industry or harming young girls and young children with self-harm and eating disorder content.

In all of those respects, I think the lesson you need to be taking from this is that these companies will wiggle out of everything they can. They will act in the worst possible way, and that's why more comprehensive legislation—a framework, as your previous speaker said—is necessary.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I met with McMaster University's student newspaper recently, The Silhouette, and they told me that they're really struggling, because without being able to share on Facebook and Instagram they don't have a way to reach their audience, the students of McMaster University. They're finding that, in lieu of getting news sources, the students are reading various opinions that are posted online.

I do agree that there are lots of great news organizations that operate only online. If people take my previous comments to mean otherwise, then that's just because they were inelegantly stated. Of course there are great online journalists, but there's also a proliferation of opinion that's not based on news or fact.

What do you think about those tactics that pull in an organization that doesn't even fall under Bill C-18. Student journalists wouldn't benefit from Bill C-18, yet they're being caught in this intimidation tactic.

I'll go to Mr. Ahmed first.

[Imran Ahmed]

I think this reinforces the fact that this is nothing more than Facebook literally vandalizing their own service in a petulant display of mock martyrdom, claiming that this is necessary for their business.

How on earth could it possibly be a viable business decision to say that the students at McMaster University and the journalism they're producing are in any way a significant threat to their bottom line, such that they have to withdraw their facilities from them?

I think it's in the petulance, in the sheer scale of their decision and in the lack of care that they've taken with it that you can see precisely what it is they're up to. Thank you for highlighting that.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Kint, I'd like to turn to you.

With the one minute I have left, maybe you could give us an overview of the sorts of court cases that we're seeing in the United States and what lawmakers in other countries are trying to do that's similar to what we are trying to do in Canada.

[Jason Kint]

Thank you for that question.

Most of the most interesting court cases are around antitrust and data abuse, so we know, and this was part of the study in Australia too, that the source of their market power and this imbalance in bargaining power is that they—Google and Facebook, in particular—have access to all the data and the distribution and they're the gateways.

You're seeing new legislation and you're seeing lawsuits that involve that kind of integration of market power play out.

We're talking about harms from Facebook's blocking of traffic. Yes, that traffic does have value to publishers, but the only reason they're able to do that and get away with blocking across the board, and having it exert so much harm, is their market power. That's what this is all about—this imbalance in bargaining power.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Mr. Kint.

We'll move now to the Bloc, Mr. Champoux, for six minutes.

Martin.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our guests for being with us today.

Mr. Roy, you said in your opening statement that Bill C‑18 might not ultimately be the right approach. I'm a bit surprised by that.

I'm not saying Bill C‑18 is the only approach we should adopt, but don't you think we're in a way throwing the baby out with the bathwater by concluding it wasn't the right one?

[Jean-Hugues Roy]

All I said was that it wasn't the best approach.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Do you agree with me that it's one of the tools that could be useful in the present system if Canada manages to get Google to enter into agreements with the media?

[Jean-Hugues Roy]

Yes, it could be useful, but we can also go further. Earlier we were talking about a fund.

There's also a complex side to Bill C‑18. It can take a long time to negotiate with everyone. If two businesses said they were prepared to contribute to a fund, it might be up to you legislators to establish the amount of that contribution. You could set it at 30% of their revenue, for example. We already have mechanisms for then distributing those amounts, such as the Canada media fund, to which we could add an information component.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You're getting ahead of me by bringing up the Canada media fund. You may have heard about the recent proposal that the Québecor people put to the CRTC concerning a 20% fund that would be divided up to create a journalism fund and another fund for the cultural sector.

Part of that fund could also be used, for example, to ease the regulatory burden caused by the requirements under paragraph 9(1)(h) of the Broadcasting Act, in particular.

Have you given any thought to that? Do you have any idea of the value of the fund, or levy or fee, that Canada could charge the web giants?

[Jean-Hugues Roy]

It's hard to say. According to a recent study, Google should contribute approximately USD $11 billion or $12 billion to the news media in the United States. I personally think that's over the top.

As for Google in Canada, it's very hard to calculate. I've looked into Meta in the past few years, and Meta generated revenue of CAD $4 billion last year, and the value of information was approximately $200 million. I think we could go after part of that amount. If we split the difference and got $100 million from Meta, I think that would be reasonable.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I think it's interesting that you referred to that study, which is relatively recent. However, the figures cited are nothing like the ones that have been put forward since the study of this bill began. They're much higher than those that are supposed to correspond to the value of news on the platforms. That's particularly the case for Meta and Google. That sort of surprised me.

I heard you react on the subject in the media. In particular, you said that one should always take those studies with a grain of salt because the real figures are inaccessible. We lack the information to conduct an exact valuation.

Don't you get the impression that the strategy of these big companies is precisely to ensure that the actual figures don't get out? Then they can cover their tracks and make it hard to establish the amount of a fair and equitable fee.

[Jean-Hugues Roy]

That's exactly why I made those last two recommendations. You have to be demanding with these platforms. Canada could demand to see the figures for the Canadian subsidiaries of Google, Airbnb and all the listed digital multinationals conducting business in Canada. Their operations have an impact on Canadians' lives.

Then you should assume a right to review the information that these companies have on Canadians. I think that's fundamental. You obviously have to protect users' privacy. If you want to regulate those businesses, you have to get to know them better, and I think you can develop the means to do that.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Based on your expertise, do you think we've done the right thing by considering regulating the digital giants by sector?

Rather than introduce regulations and bills on a sector-by-sector basis, as in the case of culture or news—which we're going to do with regulations on online hate and artificial intelligence—do you think we should have looked to Europe's digital services legislation instead?

In other words, should we have taken a more comprehensive approach than a sector-by-sector one? Would comprehensive legislation have been more effective?

Have we in a way shot ourselves in the foot by proceeding one step at a time?

[Jean-Hugues Roy]

I don't think Canada has shot itself in the foot. Journalism needed funding and that looked like an attractive solution. I think what you're proposing is a good idea for a future regulatory effort.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Are you optimistic?

[Jean-Hugues Roy]

I'm not very optimistic about information in Canada for the moment.

At the time when Facebook blocked news content in Australia for six days, I had conducted a research project on the impact of the suppression of French-language information in Canada in 2020. I didn't find much disinformation. Facebook has now blocked the news in Canada for three months, and I can see that it's less benign than I had expected. A lot of viral content comes from the media, but with deceptive or outright false elements added in. Facebook without information is far more toxic than I thought.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you, Mr. Roy. We're over time.

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

We move to the New Democratic Party and Mr. Julian.

Peter, you have six minutes, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks to all our witnesses.

Mr. Ahmed, I'd like to start with you. You're a hero to so many of us for the work you've done in exposing some of the unbelievably toxic practices of the web giants.

The report “Malgorithm”, which the Center for Countering Digital Hate issued, is frightening, and it is disturbing. You speak of Meta basically force-feeding misinformation about COVID, election denial and QAnon—profoundly disturbing information. We know that in states and provinces where there was a lower vaccination rate, more people died. We know that people died in Washington. There has been violence linked to QAnon.

Can you tell us if you see a link between that real-world violence and the kind of irresponsible toxic practices that Meta and X are engaged in?

[Imran Ahmed]

Quite clearly, yes. When people see content more often, there's a simple frequency bias in our psychology that we believe it's more likely to be true. Platforms are force-feeding disinformation to people through their newsfeed, which is an act of publishing.

There's this myth that what you see is the content of a billion people—of course you don't. You see a timeline that's structured specifically for you. This is not a global discourse. This is a discourse that's controlled by algorithms, which are designed for commercial impact. You saw it again and again in the witness testimony of people who were charged with crimes related to the January 6 insurrection in the Capitol—about four blocks down from my house here—or it's in the testimony of my friends and my colleagues who work in the medical profession, who told me about people who were choking to death in ICUs, begging for a vaccine that they had once thought would harm them and it was now too late to administer. Many of those people went on to die. There are human beings, there are tragedies and there are families today bereft, directly because of the disinformation that was pumped actively, as an act of deliberate publishing, to people.

There are victims of terror attacks. I was speaking in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life synagogue quite recently. Again, we see the effect of these conspiracy theories being force-fed to people such that they think it is acceptable and normal, and that other people would approve that they've killed people because of the god they worship or who it is they choose to love.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

You reference the anti-Semitic killings at the Tree of Life. I'll reference the Islamophobic killings in London, Ontario, and Quebec City; the homophobic killings in Colorado Springs; and the racist killings in Buffalo, New York, and Charleston, South Carolina. We can go on and on. I note that, in 2022, every single ideologically motivated mass murder in North America was provoked by far-right terrorism. That is a clear and present danger to our democracy.

The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have started their “Stop Hate For Profit”, which comes from Meta's unbelievably irresponsible actions.

I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Ahmed. Canada subsidizes Meta and Google indirectly by providing massive subsidies—over $1 billion a year for businesses to advertise on Meta. It's a tax write-off. The Canadian taxpayer picks up the tab for Meta and Google. Do you believe this is a responsible action, to so heavily subsidize companies that are engaged in that deliberate fomentation of hate?

To what extent can we push back against anti-Semitism and Islamophobia by ending that massive subsidy to these companies?

[Imran Ahmed]

Peter, thank you so much for the words you said earlier on about the work that we do at CCDH. To be clear, we're around 25 people with about $2.5 million a year in revenue. Think about the fact that we do that research, which is innovative and provides you with insights that you're not getting from these companies that you provide $1 billion a year to in subsidies. They can't be bothered to do the basic work that we are doing to check whether or not their platforms are safe across a number of different areas of harm.

It is, frankly, outrageous that for so long these companies have been able to get away with things like governmental subsidies—and you're not the only country that does so—and with the acclaim that their founders and people like Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Musk receive, while at the same time failing to do the basics necessary, which are being filled in by civil society and funded by philanthropic donors and by members of the public, like the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the work that Jason does. By the way, I want to say he's another hero of mine.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you.

This is the final question for this round. You noted in your submission that you “recorded ads placed by Facebook Pages controlled by Chinese state media...and found that out of 50 ads...88% were hidden from Meta's ad library after they ran.” Can you explain that, please?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Quickly.