Evidence of meeting #50 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was facebook.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Head, Media Partnerships, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Thank you for the question.
Again, I'm not sure how many other ways I can answer this question, other than that I wasn't involved in Australia. I understand that some mistakes were made. We've talked about those mistakes. We want to avoid that outcome again, which is why we want to be transparent in the committee.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thank you.
I'll go on and finish. It continues:
The documents also show multiple Facebook employees tried to raise alarms about the impact and offer possible solutions, only to receive a minimal or delayed response from the leaders of the team in charge.
After five days that caused disorder throughout the country, Australia's Parliament amended the proposed law to the degree that, a year after its passage, its most onerous provisions haven't been applied to Facebook or its parent company, Meta Platforms Inc.
“We landed exactly where we wanted to,” wrote Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of partnerships, who pressed for the company's aggressive stance, in a congratulatory email to her team minutes after the Australian Senate voted to approve the watered-down bill at the end of February 2021.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg chimed in with congratulations as well, with Ms. Sandberg praising the “thoughtfulness of the strategy” and “precision of execution.”
Is that what happened, Mr. Dinsdale?
Head, Media Partnerships, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
Again, I was not involved in Australia.
Liberal
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I am not aware, as well.
I think what's important, though—
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I want to talk to you about the substance of the bill.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Let me go on, Mr. Chan.
I heard you say in your opening statement that Meta does not unfairly benefit from news and that, in fact, the reverse is true. But we all know that Facebook's main source of success is on the data it collects from its users—I think 22 million, according to Ms. Gladu earlier.
Are you telling us that the data you collect on people sharing and reading news has no value whatsoever to Facebook?
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I would just put it this way, I guess. In 2017, 5% of content was potentially in the news domain. It has now moved to 3%.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
How much time do people spend on news on your platform? Can you give us any numbers?
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I don't have that. We don't keep track of that. But what I can tell you—
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Your most important metric is time spent on this platform. We know that you track how many people spend time on specific content, but you say that you don't track how much time people spend on news on your platform.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I guess I can answer it, if you will allow me, in a different way, which is to say that Canadians tell us they want less news on Facebook, not more. We are moving to meet that request.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Do you have any statistics to back this up that you can share with our committee?
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I think we have.... We've been clear about this since February 2021. We can look to see if there's anything. It is not only the stated preference of Canadians on Facebook, but maybe if you will permit me to actually share a study—
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
We've heard already in this committee that you've entered into deals with publishers in Canada. Why would you do that if there was no value to you?
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
We did it in order to incentivize a more robust digital transition so that we would not be in a situation where legacy media sort of continued the same approach—
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you for your questions. Yes, your time is up.
I'd like the committee to know that we have time, if everyone is very concise, to go one full round.
I will now go to Mr. Shields for the Conservatives for a third round.
Mr. Shields, you have five minutes, please.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I find this interesting with some of the witnesses and their comments.
Mr. Chan, are you a private company such that people purchase advertising with your business?
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I'm sorry, Mr. Shields.... Do people buy advertising to place it on Facebook? Yes.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
That's right. Thank you.
One thing I've heard from newspaper publications in particular—weeklies—is that the federal government used to purchase hundreds of millions of dollars in newspaper advertising in newspapers. They have moved that to your type of business. Has the federal government in a sense—like Australia—moved its advertising to your platform?
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
Well, Mr. Shields, I don't know the precise number, but obviously I've seen advertising from the Government of Canada on our site, so I presume there's some amount of that, yes.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
One thing that newspaper people said, particularly in the weekly industry, is that if the government wanted to support the weekly newspaper, it would return its advertising to that platform. The government is making money when it sends it to you. Now the weekly newspapers are saying “Please return it to us”, in the sense of advertising.
Thank you.
Mr. von Finckenstein, you talked about the CRTC not being in a position to take it on because it hasn't been doing this. Are we looking at an ArriveCAN situation, where there's a company that then subcontracts all over the place to try to do this? How do you think the CRTC is going to take on this challenge?