Evidence of meeting #79 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 meta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Martin.
I will go to the Liberals now, and Lisa Hepfner. Lisa, you have five minutes, please.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Chan, are you aware of the U.S. antitrust lawsuits against Google's dominance in ad tech? I'm asking specifically about the lawsuit that alleges that Google and Facebook illegally agreed not to compete with one another on advertising technology, which is a violation of the Sherman antitrust act.
12:10 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I don't think I'm familiar with that particular part. I am aware of the legal—
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Okay, let me go on and give you a little more detail.
We've seen some information coming out of this lawsuit that shows evidence of market-rigging between Facebook and Google. To be specific, Facebook signed a quid pro quo agreement with Google to kill the rival ad tech called “header bidding” in return for special privileges for Facebook. Header bidding was an alternative ad tech that news publishers were embracing in order to increase their online ad revenues.
How does Meta expect news organizations to innovate in the digital space when it colludes with Google to kill rival ad technologies?
12:10 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I'm happy to take that, Madam.
In Canada, you don't have to look—
12:15 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I'm so sorry, Madam Chair.
I should just point out that you don't have to look at the United States, Madam Chair. We can look just in Canada. Jeff Elgie, who runs Village Media, has his own ad tech platform that he just launched to much acclaim. He has been and continues to be a long-time colleague and partner of ours, and we have no intention, of course—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
I'm sorry, sir. To go back to the California lawsuit that we were talking about, the lawsuit shows that Google knew that header bidding increased publishers' ad revenues by 30% to 40%. That's for the news publishers. In return for killing that technology that benefited the news publishers, Google guaranteed that Facebook would win 10% of ad bids on Google servers.
My question is this: What is Meta's increase in ad revenue since Sheryl Sandberg signed that agreement with Google back in September 2018? How much did Meta gain with this scheme, to the detriment of news publishers?
12:15 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I'm not aware. I believe that a lot of this will probably be best addressed to Google.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Perhaps you can give us the Facebook data in writing after this meeting, if you don't have it on hand.
Really, how can you state that you're a partner to news organizations and small businesses when you're working behind the scenes with Google to hurt those same businesses, hurt their innovation and their ability to grow online?
12:15 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
Madam Chair, I still get The Globe and Mail delivered to me every day. I've been doing this for over 20 years, and I enjoy flipping through it every day and seeing the partnership we have with The Canadian Press. Are you aware, Madam, that on every article written by one of our news fellows, there is a byline at the end that talks about how these fellows are made possible through a partnership—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Okay, great. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that exactly.
Facebook has a journalism project. In 2019, your company announced it would donate $300 million to the news business, with a special focus on local journalism. However, research from Columbia's Tow Center for Digital Journalism found that $29.4 million was actually allocated to local U.S. news organizations. Furthermore, about half of the 500-plus newsrooms received only one grant of about $5,000 each.
Why did you allocate only 10% of your initial commitment to that journalism fund?
12:15 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
I believe it was a global fund that was announced. We have spent $8 million in Canada with respect to programs with news publishers and partnerships. That includes our Canadian Press news fellowship program. That includes the accelerator program—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thank you, sir.
I want to point out that this fund actually represents a very small percentage of what Facebook paid under the news media bargaining code in Australia and what it would be mandated to pay under Bill C-18.
I want to go a bit into your statement that news has no value to Facebook.
We know that Facebook collects millions of data points on its 21.5 million Canadian users. Your company has pushed back against regulation internationally that would limit your ability to harvest data for ad tracking. Are you really telling us that the data collected on the content a user views on your platform is of no value to Meta?
12:15 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
Madam Chair, with apologies to my journalism and publisher colleagues, I think what we're saying, as we have said elsewhere, is that this type of content—news links, etc.—is highly substitutable, so—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I'm sorry. You are out of time.
Mr. Chan, did you want to finish your answer? Answer very quickly.
12:15 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
It's highly substitutable. What that means is that if the content were not there, people would nonetheless engage with other kinds of content, with no—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
If journalism that has been sourced is not there, people will find other sources of information. That's very illuminating.
Thank you, Mr. Chan.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Ms. Hepfner.
Now I'm going to go to Martin Champoux from the Bloc for two and a half minutes.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
You said earlier, Ms. Curran, that in the last quarter, Meta's global revenue was $30 billion. Is that right?
12:15 p.m.
Head of Public Policy, Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
It was $13 billion in North America for the last quarter, Mr. Champoux.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
It's for North America. Okay.
And you also said that the sharing of news content accounted for less than 3% of content on your platforms. I think that was in Mr. Chan's speaking notes. Now 3% of $30 billion is roughly $900 million. That's what's generated in North America by the sharing of news content on your platforms. That may not be a big deal for Meta or Facebook, but what represents a drop of water in Meta's ocean probably amounts to the bread and butter of small newspapers. It could save many companies, like those in my colleague Mr. Shields' region, about which he spoke earlier.
Don't you think that numbers like these deserve a little more serious attention?
12:20 p.m.
Global Policy Director, Meta Platforms Inc.
Mr. Champoux, societal debates over principles are sometimes needed. Now, attacking the concept of an open and free Internet is an important issue.