Thank you for the question, Mr. Lucas.
The answer is that national practices vary. Some countries go more towards the United States model. Others go towards the United Kingdom model. In truth, though, we are finding that in many countries where the law is more restrictive, in practice many individuals and political parties are using social media to get around the law in a way that was not properly envisaged in some of the actual legislation.
With the chair's permission, I'd like to take the opportunity, since I've been asked a question, to refer to something that I think is transversal across all the issues we have here. It goes back to the statement made by Ms. Weintraub regarding who is going to be the arbiter of truth. In a number of countries, that value is still very close to our hearts. It is a fundamental human right, which happens to reside in the same article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which many of the countries around the table, if not all, are members.
In the same section that talks about privacy, we have the provision on reputation, and people [Technical difficulty—Editor] care a lot about their reputation. So in terms of the arbiter of truth, essentially, in many countries, including France—I believe there was some discussion in Canada too—people are looking at having an arbiter of truth. Call him the Internet commissioner or call him the Internet ombudsman, call him what you will, but in reality people want a remedy, and the remedy is that you want to go to somebody who is going to take things down if something is not true.
We have to remember—and this applies also to online harm, including radicalization—that a lot of the harm that is done on the Internet is done in the first 48 hours of publication, so timely takedown is the key practical remedy. Also, in many cases, while freedom of speech should be respected, privacy and reputation are best respected by timely takedown. Then, if the arbiter in the jurisdiction concerned deems that it was unfair to take something down, it can go back up. Otherwise, we need the remedy.
Thank you.