Information & Ethics Committee on May 28th, 2019

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Yes, you bet.

[James Lawless]

Ms. Weintraub, it was interesting to listen to your analysis of what happened in the recent elections, and I suppose particularly of nation-states' influence.

One thing that I think is common is that it's not necessarily that they favour one candidate over another, but—it seems to be a common theme—that they favour dissent and, I suppose, weakening western democracies. I think we saw that arguably in Brexit as well as in the U.S. elections. How do we combat that?

I have drafted legislation similar to the honest ads act, the social media transparency act, with very similar objectives. One question, and I'll come back to it in the second round, is about how we actually enforce that type of legislation. Is the onus on the publishers or is it on the platform?

We heard somebody mention that they had successfully run fake ads from the 100 U.S. senators or members of the House of Representatives or whatever it was. Should it be the platforms that are liable for ensuring that the correct disclosure and disclaimers and verification are performed? They say back to us that they can't possibly do that. Do we, then, make the people who are running the ads liable, or do we make the people who are taking out the ads liable, if you understand the distinction?

[Ellen Weintraub]

Historically what we do in the States is put the onus on whoever is placing the ads to make sure that their disclaimers and disclosure obligations are fulfilled. It seems to me, though, that we could take advantage of the vaunted machine learning AI capabilities of these platforms. If the machines can detect that the name on the ad bears no relation at all to the source of the payment, you would think they could have a human being take a look at it and say, “Hey, let's just make sure we have the right name here on the ad.”

It's not the way our laws work right now, though.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Next up for five minutes is Mr. Zimmermann from Germany.

[Jens Zimmermann, Social Democratic Party, Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would first start with Mr. Cannataci and would focus on international co-operation.

We brought up earlier here that on an international level, co-operation is needed. This is also the idea behind our meeting here. Where, though, do you see forums for co-operation in these areas? We'll have, for example, the Internet Governance Forum, which is a multi-stakeholder approach on the UN level, this year in Germany.

Do you see any other approaches?

[Prof. Joseph A. Cannataci]

Thank you for that question, Mr. Zimmermann.

The Internet Governance Forum is a useful place to meet and talk, but we must be very careful not to let it remain just a talking show. The problem is that it is a forum in which many interesting ideas are heard but very little governance takes place. At this moment in time, the states unfortunately tend to dodge the responsibility of providing actual governance.

I think what we're going to see, and I think the companies feel this coming—some of them have half-admitted it—is countries getting together, including the European Parliament that has just been elected, and increasingly using measures that will focus attention.

Nothing focuses attention like money. The GDPR approach, which has been referred to, has companies around the world paying close attention, because nobody wants to be stuck with a bill of 4% of their global turnover. I think that this is one measure that will help introduce liability and responsibility. To come to the previous question, I think it will also focus attention on platforms at least as much as publishers, because as somebody said, sometimes it's difficult to detect whether the publisher was the right person.

[Jens Zimmermann]

Thank you very much.

The enforcement question would have been my follow-up, but you already answered. Thank you.

I would also ask Ms. Weintraub one question.

We have mentioned many times now trolls and troll farms, and we're focusing very much on advertisements. What about homegrown trolls? We've seen to a certain degree also in Germany that especially on the far right there are activists who are really trolls on steroids. You don't have to pay them; they do this because they want to support their political affiliates.

They're also using tools whereby, in the dark, they decide to focus on such-and-such member of Parliament, attacking him or her, or simply supporting every post done by a member of a party. They are simply making the most out of the algorithms, and they don't need any money for it

Do you have that also on the radar?

[Ellen Weintraub]

I think you raise another very serious question. We have seen this in the States, that some of the techniques that were pioneered by foreign activists are now being adopted by domestic activists because they've seen that they work. It has the same kind of concerning effect as promoting discord, and hate speech sometimes, and gathering from the crevices of the community people who have views that in isolation might not have much power but that, when they are able to find each other online and promote these ideas, become much more concerning.

We don't have good tools to go after that, because it's easy to say, if it's foreigners, that they're trying to intervene in our election, and we know that's not a good thing. When it's our own people, though, it's a bigger challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Jens Zimmermann]

I'll raise maybe one last aspect.

We have a lot of regulation of the media, what is allowed for a TV station, for a radio station, but in Germany right now we have a lot of debate about YouTube, people who basically have more of an audience than many TV stations but are not regulated at all.

Is that something you are also seeing?

[Ellen Weintraub]

We certainly have the phenomenon of influencers. I don't spend a lot of time on YouTube myself, and when I see some of these folks, I'm really not sure why they have this kind of influence and sway, but they do.

It goes back to the model that we have. The model of regulation in the United States is a money-based model. When we began to address political activity on the Internet, it was at a point when YouTube was in its infancy and the governing assumption was that of course somebody would have to pay to put these ads up in order for anybody to see them. Now we're dealing in a whole different world in which all this free content is up there and it goes viral. There are very few controls on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you.

We're going to get back to our parliamentarians, now that they've returned from voting.

We'll go to Mr. Kent for five minutes.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is for Commissioner Therrien and is related to the revelation in the government's response to an Order Paper question regarding discriminatory advertising for employment, on a number of platforms, it seems, but certainly Facebook was mentioned, in which a number of departments had requested micro-targeting advertising by sex and age.

Mr. Chan, the CEO of Facebook Canada, responded that yes, that was the case but protocols have changed, although there was a certain imprecision or ambiguity in his responses. He said that the Government of Canada has been advised that it is not only unacceptable but quite possibly illegal under various human rights legislation across the country.

Could I have your response, Commissioner?

[Daniel Therrien]

I think this shows the importance of having regulations that are human rights based. Here we have a practice that allegedly resulted or could result in discrimination. I think it's important that the regulations look at the net effect of a practice and deal with it from a human rights perspective.

In terms of privacy, we tend to look at privacy or data protection as rules around consent and specification of purpose and so forth. I think Cambridge Analytica raised the issue of the close relationship between privacy protection, data protection and the exercise of fundamental rights, including, in the case of your example, equality rights.

I think that for the types of laws for which I'm responsible in Canada, by defining privacy not with regard to important mechanisms such as consent, for instance, but with regard to the fundamental rights that are protected by privacy, we would have a more effective and more fulsome protection.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Okay.

The question for you, Ms. Weintraub, is on the discussion we had with Facebook this morning with regard to the Pelosi altered video and the statement that Facebook made to the Washington Post saying,“We don't have a policy that...the information you post on Facebook must be true.”

Clearly, this is a case of political maliciousness. It is not an election year, but certainly it is tainting the well of democracy and obviously targeting one political leader's reputation and political leadership. I'm wondering what your thoughts are with regard to the Facebook argument.

They will take down a video by someone posting the truth who is falsely posting, but they will leave up the video placed by someone who is obviously quite willing to say that they put the video up and simply to put an advisory that it doesn't seem to be the truth, even though, in the Pelosi case, that manipulated video has been seen by many millions of viewers since the controversy developed, which again feeds the business plan of Facebook with regard to clicks and number of views.

[Ellen Weintraub]

Well, I heard a lot of dissatisfaction voiced this morning about the answer that Facebook gave. I have to say that I also found their answer to be somewhat unsatisfactory, but it raises a really important question. I mean, in this case they know it's not true, but the broader question is, who is going to be the arbiter of truth?

Personally, I don't want that responsibility, and I think it's dangerous when government takes on that responsibility of deciding what is true and what isn't. That really veers more into the Orwellian, more authoritarian governance. I don't think I would feel comfortable either being that person or living in a regime where government had that power, but if government doesn't have that power, then the question is, who does? I'm also uncomfortable with the platforms having that much power over determining what is truth and what isn't.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

If that were to occur in an election cycle, what would your response be?

[Ellen Weintraub]

In election cycles, we have various regulations that govern ads, if indeed it is paid advertising and if it mentions candidate names. Every member of the House of Representatives runs every two years. I suppose that for a member of the House of Representatives they are always in cycle, but we have stronger rules that govern once we get closer to the election. Within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election, there are rules, again, that go to disclosure, though. We don't have any rules that would empower my agency to order a platform to take down an ad.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Ms. Weintraub.

Some of the membership of the committee are not going to ask questions, so we have a bit more time than you might expect. If you do want to ask another question, please signal the chair, and I'll add you in at the end of the sequence.

Next up, we have the member from Estonia.

Go ahead.

[Keit Pentus-Rosimannus, Vice-Chairwoman, Reform Party, Parliament of the Republic of Estonia (Riigikogu)]

Thank you.

Ms. Weintraub, I have a question for you.

Disinformation is officially part of Russia's military doctrine. It has been so for some time already. They are using it as a strategy to divide the west, basically. It is also known that Russia uses 1.1 billion euros per year for their propaganda and spreading their narratives.

Your next presidential elections are practically tomorrow. Knowing the things we now know about the last campaigning period, are you ready today? If what happened during the previous campaign would reappear, and if all the same things would happen again, do you think that now you would be able to solve it?

[Ellen Weintraub]

I'm not going to claim that I can personally solve the problem of disinformation in our elections. As I mentioned earlier, I think there are laws and regulations that have been drafted and should be adopted that would strengthen our position.

I also think that we, writ large, need to devote more attention to digital literacy. A lot of people believe all sorts of things that they see online and that they really shouldn't. My daughter tells me that this is generational, that her generation is much more skeptical of what they read online and that it's only my foolish generation that views the Internet as this novelty and assumes that everything they read is true.

I don't know that I entirely agree that it's entirely a generational problem, but I do think that we, as a whole, as the broader community of democracies, really need to look into what our resiliency is to the kind of disinformation that we know is going to be out there.

As I said, we're always fighting the last battle, so we can write laws to address what happened last time, but I'm quite sure that in the next election new techniques are going to be developed that nobody's even thinking about yet.

[Keit Pentus-Rosimannus]

Can you say what are the two main threats you are preparing for?

[Ellen Weintraub]

My agency is all about regulating money in politics. That is our focus, so we are trying to look at where the money is coming from. That is what we're always looking at. We're trying to get better transparency measures in place so that our voters and our electorate will better know where the money is coming from and who is trying to influence them. That's really my number one priority.

[Keit Pentus-Rosimannus]

We just had elections in Europe, the European parliamentary elections. Do you see anything we went through that could be used to prepare for your next election? How closely do you co-operate with European colleagues?