Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 5th, 2021

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay. My issue here is that we're not interested in adult pornography, in what adults do in a room. That's not the purview of the committee. The committee's job is whether or not big tech is respecting its legal obligations. Ms. Fleites has a statement that she begged you to take it down. There should be a record that this was reported to the police, because you're legally obligated.

Now, in the case of Rose Kalemba and her torture, the videos were listed as “teen crying and getting slapped around”, “teen getting destroyed” and “passed out teen”. Your moderators viewed this. You told us that every video was viewed, so you viewed this. Wouldn't you think that someone in your organization would have said that a video of the torture of a 14-year-old girl would be in contravention of subsection 163.1(3) of the child pornography law, which means that it's a 14-year crime. Why did it take six months to get it down, and do you have a record of having dealt with this woman? Why was it kept up there when you know this is a criminal activity?

[David Tassillo]

If there was a time when the content was up there, it would be taken down as soon as we were made aware that it was against our terms of service. For this specific incident, I'd have to go back and verify the exact timeline. I don't have it.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay, I guess—

[David Tassillo]

I don't have it with me.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay. I guess the issue here is that Ms. Fleites said she had to pretend she was her mother—

[David Tassillo]

That is a different instance, and I would—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay, but you know, the issue here is children—

[David Tassillo]

I understand that—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Let me finish. This is about children and whether a crime—

[David Tassillo]

You're not letting me answer the question.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You're not letting me ask the question—

[David Tassillo]

You asked and I wasn't given a chance to reply to it, respectfully. You asked me if I had the information—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Chair, could I just actually finish my question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Angus, yes, if you want to ask your question, then an answer could be forthcoming.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

My question is this. Ms. Fleites was 13 years old. She testified to our committee the same as you, which would be like being under oath, that she begged you over a six-month period and that you made her send photos and proof before you took the video down, and it was reloaded time and time again. Ms. Kalemba said she finally had to pretend she was a lawyer after the videos of her rape had been seen over 400,000 times.

If in those two cases that was the situation, how can you come here and tell us that “immediately, as soon as someone raises this, we take it down”? I'm going to ask you this question. Will you give to our committee the reports of how many incidents you actually report to the RCMP, which is your legal obligation in response to these crimes committed against children? If you're following the law, that should be a pretty straightforward thing to give us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Angus. You'll be out of time by the time the answer is given.

Mr. Tassillo, we'll turn to you.

[David Tassillo]

We do report all cases to NCMEC. What they do is that they take that information and they disseminate it down to Cybertip.ca, so all that information is available. I would have to—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You can get that to us?

[David Tassillo]

I would have to speak to my counsel if I am violating any privacy laws, which I'm sure you guys are all—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

We don't want names. We want numbers. Then we can—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Angus. You are out of time. We can have a discussion about documents and the way that the witnesses can get those documents to the clerk at the end of the committee meeting as well.

We'll now turn to Mr. Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To our witnesses here, I have read your brief and I am astounded that you would come here and claim that you're world leaders in child protection.

On Tuesday, after Serena's testimony, you announced new safety measures. Where were these safety measures when Serena needed them? Where were they when Rose needed them? That's all pretty interesting.

Have you or your organization ever apologized to any of these children or women who have been exploited on your site?

[David Tassillo]

We definitely have intense remorse for anyone who went through any heinous crimes. We don't want it to be any part of our corporation. We were extremely upset that people abused our platform.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Have you apologized to anybody?

[David Tassillo]

In any instance where we've felt we were doing wrongdoing, we 100% would. As an individual I feel horrible for her, but as a corporation right now we are uncertain. This is what I was trying to get to in a previous question.

We are not saying that Ms. Fleites—