Canadian Heritage Committee on May 8th, 2023

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

We are not attacking the concept of an open and free Internet, we're talking about content, those who created and those who don't really have the option of using platforms today because it's the new way of communicating. People end up on platforms using search engines and that's where they find information. Content creators, and the news media, can only comply. If they had a choice, they would probably not be on your platforms but the choice available to them is to use the platforms or die.

Once again, Mr. Chan and Ms. Curran, you're telling me about $30 billion in revenue in North America in the last quarter. At a rough estimate, $900 million of this revenue comes from the sharing of news content. Let's say it's only $500 million, or half a billion dollars. I think a figure like that would make any news organization green with envy.

[Kevin Chan]

Those numbers are wrong. The percentage of a type of content is not equivalent to the percentage of our revenue that it generates.

The money we get comes from small- and medium-sized businesses that want to publish advertising…

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You sell advertising. You sell data.

[Kevin Chan]

... on our platform for an audience of 24 million Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry; I'm going to Mr. Julian for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The Meta representatives are telling us that they want to respect the committee, except that Mr. Clegg refused to come here today. They spoke about transparency, but they refused to disclose the figures for revenue generated in Canada. They are here to talk about Bill C‑18, and even though they admit that the bill has changed considerably, they continue to speak about the initial version rather than the current one.

I'm therefore somewhat skeptical about Meta's sincerity. Moreover, there have been some extremely serious allegations made against Meta.

I'm speaking of course, Madam Chair, of the horrific allegations contained in reports recently about Facebook amplifying hate. The Amnesty International report found that Facebook amplified hate ahead of the Rohingya massacre in Myanmar, and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has talked about Facebook letting activists incite ethnic massacres with hate and misinformation in Ethiopia. We have reports that Facebook's ethical failures are not accidental; they are part of the business model.

How do you respond to these serious, egregious allegations that amplifying the most horrific human rights violations and ethical failures are part of Facebook's and Meta's business model? How do you respond to those allegations, and why should we believe you now when you come to this committee and say that you want to respect laws and respect Canadian values?

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

I can say this. Our community standards prohibit hate speech and prohibit misinformation on our platforms. We have large teams working around the world to remove content that's forbidden by our community standards, and that includes hate speech or any content that would incite people to violence, and we work very hard to remove that.

It's not perfect. Our enforcement systems aren't perfect, but they're getting better every year, and we report on those results transparently and publicly in our transparency centre so that Canadians and parliamentarians know that we're holding ourselves to a certain standard and that we're improving all the time in meeting our goals.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you. Your time is up for this round of questioning.

I'm going to Ms. Gladu from the Conservatives for five minutes.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I think I'm going to pick up on the topic that I left off with last time, and that has to do with the fact that since I have been on this committee studying Bill C-18, I have been explaining, as a person who was in business for over 30 years, that if the government brings in a plan that says that if you allow the sharing of news links, you have to pay, a logical business reaction is to say that you won't allow the sharing of news links so that you don't have to pay.

Mr. Chan, does that seem like a logical business decision?

[Kevin Chan]

That is an eminently logical conclusion, ma'am.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

It seems to me that the shock and surprise that is being expressed by the other parties, as if it's something unthinkable that Facebook is doing, is exactly the reaction that was predicted, and this is exactly what happened in Australia.

Now let me talk about the Australian situation. You mentioned that you are now not under the Australian legislation. Could you describe, after there was blocking of information in response to the Australian legislation, what led to Australians being able to see content again?

[Rachel Curran]

Through the chair, yes, we're not designated under the Australian legislation. It does not apply to us or to any other platform.

One of the key differences between the legislation in Australia and the legislation in Canada is that the Australian legislation allowed time for a process to unfold whereby we could reach what we call an untidy and short-term compromise for news to remain on our platforms, and that's currently where it sits now.

If we were to be designated under the Australian legislation, I think the outcome would be very similar to what we are signalling here.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

Knowing that Canadians do not want to lose their ability to share news links—Australians didn't either—and they certainly enjoy that, has the Liberal government approached you in any way to have the similar conversations that were held in Australia to preserve the ability for Australians to share news content?

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Ms. Gladu.

Through the chair, one of the problems with the Canadian legislation is that it doesn't actually allow for any kinds of discussions like that, or for a process to unfold, before we are designated and subject to the framework contained in Bill C-18. We are virtually automatically designated under this framework as soon as the bill and regulations are finalized.

One of the amendments we have proposed is that to allow for some time for those discussions to happen, we should not be automatically designated under the legislation. As it stands, the Canadian framework does not allow for that.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Chan, my understanding is that you mentioned you were at Senate committee, and it was actually a productive discussion with respect to the amendments. What amendments did they seem to be favourable to that you would like to see modifying BillC-18?

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Ms. Gladu.

Yes, one of the things we spoke to senators about, which they seemed interested in, was the preservation of copyright principles. This is what the EU has done in a similar context with respect to news publishers.

There is no monetary compensation required for the posting of links or snippets in the EU. That protects and preserves copyright principles. We suggested that this was something that might be looked at in Canada as well. Senators were quite interested in that proposal.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Certainly, the Supreme Court in Canada decided that there should be no monetary value for the links. That would be consistent with what the courts have said, although not consistent with the legislation the Liberal government has brought forward.

One of the concerns I have about BillC-18 is that the CRTC will be involved in the oversight. They have said that they currently don't have experience in the oversight of digital platforms. Do you share my concern?

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Ms. Gladu.

Through the chair, we can't speak to the CRTC's current resourcing. My understanding is that they are not currently resourced to deal with this legislation or to implement it, and that they would need to acquire the resources to do that.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

This is my final question.

I have recommended that the government consider abandoning Bill C-18 in favour of models of the kind used in Taiwan, where monies can be brought in that would actually benefit the local and smaller media outlets. Are you involved in any relationships like that in the world?

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Ms. Gladu.

Through the chair, we have certainly signed a number of deals with Canadian publishers to support the work they're doing, and in particular to support new and innovative business models.

Look, a central fund model would be very different from what's proposed in BillC-18. I think that in principle, that model would be an easier one for us to support.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you. I will go now to the Liberals.

We have Mr. Bittle for five minutes, please.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you very much.

Again, this is disappointing. This whole exercise has once again shown Facebook's contempt for not only our democracy but for democracies around the world.

We've heard from you, Mr. Chan, multiple times on other committees as well. It really is your willingness to only answer questions if they're softballs from the Conservative Party.

You even started this by saying, “Oh, we didn't know.” The motion passed by this committee was that “the committee undertake a study on tech giants' current and ongoing use of intimidation and subversion tactics to evade regulation in Canada and across the world”. You pretend you didn't know that? I doubt that you didn't do your homework, Mr. Chan. It's disappointing that you would come here and mislead the committee on that.

You misled the committee on other items. You say news outlets get hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertising, but you leave out the part that your company is engaged in monopolistic practices that take the vast majority of ad revenue, so the free advertising is worthless.

I'd like to ask you about a 2018 meeting between the British culture secretary and Mark Zuckerberg, your CEO. He threatened to pull investment out of the U.K. if the government did not look to soften its stance on tech regulation.

Can you explain why your company would go to these lengths against legislation that seeks to protect children online?

[Kevin Chan]

I'm not aware of that meeting.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Fair enough, but you'd agree with me, though, Mr. Chan, that everyone keeps talking about different countries, different regulations. You're a massive company that does not want to be regulated and you will go to any lengths to avoid that regulation.

Are you familiar with the term “astroturfing”?

[Kevin Chan]

I believe you asked that question of Google, and I have learned—