Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 14th, 2023

[Matthew Hatfield]

I welcome this committee doing a study because I think it's an open question whether we need some dedicated government support. I think there's a strong case that some types of journalism we need are not commercially viable, but I don't think the CBC should be cannibalizing the funding we need for a diversity of sources.

I think one logical conclusion of that study is going to be that we need to address areas that don't just have struggling news organizations but may have no news organizations now. We need to ensure that any dedicated support is reaching those kinds of areas. Under Bill C-18, we get precisely the opposite. The funding is going primarily to news organizations that, to some degree, are already succeeding and still exist.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Hatfield, when the money continues to flow to legacy media instead of supporting independent, local or ethnic media, what does that do to diversity in our country?

[Matthew Hatfield]

I think it reduces it. It reduces both the innovation and representation of different voices in Canada.

Obviously, the CBC has made diversity a huge priority of its own. That's probably good. The CBC can't fully represent that by itself. We need to see a genuine diversity of viewpoints beyond just the editorial line.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Palmer, I have the same question for you. What would it take to level the playing field and actually make news independent and healthy in the nation of Canada?

[Philip Palmer]

I think the primary tool that's necessary is a truly independent fund that would allocate resources as necessary, especially to the news deserts out there and to support frontline journalism rather than top-level organizations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to the Liberals.

Michael Coteau, you have six minutes, please.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to all of our witnesses today. I found the testimony quite interesting. I appreciate your time.

I often think about the big tech companies. I know they can be placed into many different categories. We're talking a lot about online platforms, but there's a lot of big tech out there today.

I was reading in the Toronto Star today that Apple just reached the $3-trillion mark. That's a third larger than the GDP of Canada. That's just to put Apple into perspective. These companies are very powerful. They're bigger than some G20 countries with regard to their value. They are major players.

When I was a member of provincial Parliament in Ontario, I moved a bill on the right to repair. It was the first one of its kind in Canada. Apple executives and their lawyers came to my constituency office to see me. I was shocked. I had never engaged in an international multinational corporation because of a bill I put forward in the Ontario legislature. I got a bit of a feel for how powerful these companies are.

Back in the late 1700s, Benjamin Franklin became the postmaster general. It placed him at a huge advantage. If you were a publisher, the best job you could have was to control the mail. He became a publisher and was able, I think in 1774, to start to distribute his paper. Before that, he wasn't allowed to distribute it because the previous postmaster general wouldn't allow him to distribute his newspaper. Platforms today get to pick and choose what they distribute, in many ways. There was a new regulation put forward during Benjamin Franklin's time to remove those conditions and open up the mail system to create fair competition.

We're at a stage right now where we need to make sure that, as the Internet grows.... I think a couple of people mentioned that there are some good and bad sides to the Internet. We see it as something that can be used for the betterment of society, and we need to put in place the right types of rules to ensure that Canadians are getting a fair deal from this ever-changing technology.

I'd like to ask Ms. Donovan a question with regard to higher education in general. I know you had an experience with Harvard. In general in America today, how powerful is big tech when it comes to controlling the voice of research?

[Dr. Joan Donovan]

Thank you so much for the question.

I think it needs to be investigated across the board. It's not just the case that Facebook is funding research. They are also providing contracts to researchers, not just at universities but also in civil society. It's an attempt to make academia and research into a wing of their own PR.

What they have in these contracts, which I think is awful, are kill clauses or veto clauses that say Facebook has the right to read your research prior to publication and to decide if they think it has met their privacy standards. Privacy isn't just about users; it's also about the corporate products themselves. If you're a researcher and you want to study the algorithmic impact of Facebook's products, you have to be very careful that you're not also sharing what Facebook would consider trade secrets, or they could shut your research down if they were funding you.

This experience isn't just my own. There were two other whistle-blowers—one at McGill and another at Berkeley—who came forward in the Washington Post just after I did. One of the researchers at Berkeley had a grant from Facebook, and they called him after he said something critical and said, “You shouldn't be doing this; we're friends.”

I think it's really important to understand that Facebook has executives who have taken up positions on advisory boards at universities across the U.S. and Canada. They use that soft power and influence to direct research agendas.

We need a full court press from governments across the globe to understand the web of influence that Facebook has created across academia.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I like the basketball analogy you just used.

Considering the scale of these companies—again going back to the fact that some of them are bigger than some G20 countries in regard to their value in comparison to GDP—if they wanted to intimidate, they would have the power to do so. Is that correct?

[Dr. Joan Donovan]

They're already behaving like nation-states in their negotiations on Bill C-18. If you're a business that services the public interest and you understand that your role in society, especially for Facebook, is to share information with the world, then you have a public obligation to serve the people. That is the greatest thing your technology could do. I do think, though, that Facebook behaving as a state-like entity, such that they feel they should negotiate at this top level, is abhorrent.

The last thing I would say is that there is a $1-billion subsidy from the Canadian government going to Facebook. I think that needs to be addressed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to the Bloc Québécois and Martin Champoux.

Martin, you have six minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being with us this morning.

Ms. Donovan, I will continue with you, if I may.

I want to talk about the social media business model, particularly Meta and its Facebook and Instagram platforms. These platforms are profitable as long as they let people speak freely as much as possible. Am I mistaken when I say that the less they regulate speech on these platforms, the more they are in a way able to benefit from it?

I'd like to hear your comments. Do you agree with that statement?

[Dr. Joan Donovan]

Was that addressed to me? I'm sorry. I'm having trouble with the interpretation.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes.

[Dr. Joan Donovan]

In terms of the profitability of these platforms, they are in the fastest-growing industry. Once Facebook and others figured out that you could monetize the residue or data trails of users, they turned them into enormous profits. They have also developed strategies to undermine different nation-states—and the laws in these nation-states—which have different obligations to ensure that people are well educated and have access to the truth.

What I'm arguing is that Facebook has a duty to prioritize accurate, truthful information. We cannot achieve that if it is blocking all reputable news organizations. What we also know from research is that when news isn't available, something else fills the void. In that void, we know there's much more information and different kinds of information, particularly information from bad actors.

The last think I'll say is that technology is the policy. It's not that we have an absence of regulation, but the technology arrives in the world, and if we fail to regulate it, it exists and makes its own policy. Facebook, for instance, decided that you were going to be able to target individuals with bespoke advertising, which, importantly, meant that civil rights were going to be violated if you could target certain age groups and earning brackets in order to get your messages across for things like credit and purchasing health insurance or other kinds of insurance. We know there are broad civil rights effects of the way technology, like Facebook, is designed and then what kinds of services people get down the pipeline.

Importantly, technology becomes the policy. As a result, it becomes very hard for regulators to come in a year, two years or 10 years after a product has been on the market and say, “Wait. Now we understand the harms and we want to do something about them.”

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Palmer, according to what you said earlier in your presentation, Canada is too small to impose its legislation in the face of these giants. I'm paraphrasing a little, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you meant to say that we can't overflex our muscles with these companies, because there could be consequences. For example, they could simply stop offering their services on Canadian soil, which I highly doubt they will do.

I do, however, hear your comment that we are too small to play hardball with these large companies. Nevertheless, I think we still have to find a way to be “maîtres chez nous” or masters in our own home, to translate a good old expression we Quebecers are fond of.

How far do you think we can go to get respect from the companies that come to do business with us? Do you think it's normal to regulate at full capacity companies that come to dominate a market like news and culture in Quebec and Canada?

[Philip Palmer]

Thank you for the question.

I've said that Canada is too small to drive the regulation of the largest of the tech platforms. When you look at the capitalization of the large tech enterprises, it's evident that some of them exceed Canada's GDP.

As a small country, I think we have to very much keep in mind international and democratic norms. When we stray from those norms by any great amount, we're liable to run into problems that will see Canadians not able to benefit from services.

We already have Meta withdrawing from the Canadian market with negative impacts for Canadians. It hasn't yet happened, but it can happen in broadcasting that we're attempting to regulate and extract payments from online streaming services, some of which have very little to gain from continuing in the Canadian market under certain circumstances—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Wrap up, please, Mr. Palmer.

[Philip Palmer]

We have to be careful. We have to work with our partners. That's the prime thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Next we have Peter Julian for the New Democrats.

You have six minutes, please, Peter.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for very powerful testimony.

Ms. Donovan, you are a folk hero right across North America for the stands you've taken. Thank you so much for stepping up at a time that is quite frightening, when the web giants are producing so many negative impacts.

I wanted to ask you, Ms. Donovan, about a specific case. Isabella lives in Langley, British Columbia. Her son Jaden committed suicide after being engulfed in an online website run by a man name Kenneth Law that was preying on people who were vulnerable and provoking them to self-harm and to suicide. Jaden is dead.

Kenneth Law has now been charged with numerous counts of second-degree murder and counselling in suicide. Despite Isabella's best efforts, Google continues to promote the site.

I will also reference the case of Molly Russell, who killed herself at the age of 14. Her father, Ian Russell, said that she was subjected through algorithms to a constant barrage of videos and information encouraging her to self-harm and to suicide.

Are the corporate executives who allow this and who refuse to crack down on the most egregious predatory behaviours liable in some way for the incredible harm that comes as a result of their negligence or, one would say, as a result of their deliberate search for profits at the expense of these victims?

[Dr. Joan Donovan]

Wow. I'm just taking it all in here. I'm taking a moment to reflect on Jaden and Molly. I'm so sorry for what has happened to them.

If we think back 15 or so years to some of the problems we had with early social media, they revolved around what we now call cyber-bullying, or online predators who were asking young teenagers for different kinds of gross material.

What we know from Arturo Béjar, who was the whistle-blower on Instagram and who recently testified in front of Congress in the U.S., is that Instagram knew, according to his own internal research. He was working at Instagram and he looked at how often children were shown different kinds of material. It was mostly that they were being advanced on sexually and they didn't like how open the platform was in allowing people to get to them.

He really wanted to change Facebook. When he realized that the upper echelons of Facebook and Instagram were not going to change the product because it was going to effect the bottom line, he had to accept some responsibility as a quality control engineer for not addressing the problems.

I think right now what we're looking at in terms of content related to suicide and self-harm is that, while the platforms do try to tamp it down, it is a major issue. Once you start to look at self-harm content and learn the keywords and the tricks of the trade, you can get into that world and the algorithm will continue to send you more of that content.

In the case of Jaden, when it comes to a website that is encouraging self-harm and suicide, we've seen this before with a website in the U.S. called Kiwi Farms, where people would not just encourage it but harass trans people into isolation. Once they felt very isolated, some people did commit suicide.

I think there are moral and ethical responsibilities for platforms to build and design better. There's also a customer service opportunity to ensure that parents know that the place their children are going online is safe and there are some adults in the room. Unfortunately, though, we have this perception that somehow moderation on platforms is censorship. It's not true. Moderation is what keeps spam out of your inbox and these bad actors from proliferating online.

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

I want to follow up on that. As you mentioned, Mr. Ahmed talked about “malgorithms”. These are algorithms that deliberately stoke hatred. We saw last year that every single ideologically motivated mass killing in North America came from the far right. We saw a homophobic attack in Colorado Springs, racist attacks in Charleston and Buffalo, anti-Semitic attacks in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life synagogue, Islamophobic attacks in Quebec City and London, and misogynistic attacks in Toronto. All of them were provoked by this extensive network of encouraging hate in all its toxic forms.

What responsibility do the executives at these companies carry when their malgorithms deliberately bring people to these toxic forms of hate?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds, please.

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

That was to Ms. Donovan.