Thank you.
There are a number of things we believe the federal government can do to limit the amount of toxic harassment and abuse that journalists and media workers experience. First of all, we tend to look at this issue with a two-pronged approach. One is to provide support for media workers and journalists who are the victims of harassment. They need immediate support in most cases. Any response should be built around that idea.
Then, of course, the second prong is to prevent the harassment from happening in the first place and to hold the perpetrators accountable.
One thing we would like to see, which we've recommended in a number of releases, is tougher take-down requirements. One example of a tool that's been used in other jurisdictions is requiring the platforms, when there's a complaint, to act quickly—sometimes within 24 hours or faster—to take down online content that is hate-filled or harassing and abusive.
There are a number of other tools that we would recommend. I know that a number of countries are in the process of developing some version of an online harms bill. That is an extraordinarily fraught bit of legislation, no matter where it's undertaken.
Really, we fall back on some basic principles around platform accountability. The platforms have to take more responsibility themselves, and they have to be made to take accountability by legislators. In many ways, the platforms want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to appear to be passive entities, like a community bulletin board where users just post material and share TikTok videos and interesting content, when in fact, as the witnesses today and other witnesses have stated, we know that the tech giants control, moderate, mitigate and frankly profit from the transition of information and content in a myriad of ways.
We know that they're capable, when it suits them and they profit from it, of dealing with online content and with all sorts of content in different formats. For us, falling back on the principle of platform accountability is the number one way to make sure that the tech giants aren't able to sit back and say, “It's not us. We're just this friendly, passive entity. We're just a friendly, neighbourhood bulletin board.”
We know that's not true. It's factually untrue.