Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 5th, 2021

[Corey Urman]

It's just a matter of safety. Some of our employees at the company have used aliases or pseudonyms from time to time because of safety. We've seen a lot of threats and doxing on 4chan and other message boards. David and Feras, who have been using their real names, have actually seen quite a lot of attacks and threats against them and their families.

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

Is Ian Andrews another one of your aliases?

[Corey Urman]

Ian Andrews is a pseudonym for someone who works in our media communications team. It's not me. That is someone who works on our team.

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

You're worried about your personal security.

[Corey Urman]

We're worried about the security of our employees, yes, for sure.

[David Tassillo]

This was something that Feras and I blessed. We felt it was a prudent thing to do, because there are a lot of social media platforms on the Internet that don't have the responsibilities that we do, who don't actually check for negative comments and stuff like that. There have been many articles, and you can google them—if you google my name, you'll find these articles—in which they threaten not only me and my family.... And there are a bunch of other heinous accusations, so we felt it was the best way we could to protect our employees from groups who don't believe that adult entertainment belongs in the world. We're very proud of our product and we're not trying to hide behind anything. That's why Feras and I use our personal names. But we would never oblige an employees who is proud to work at the company to have to endure any of those things.

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

Interesting.

So you're worried about your personal safety, but Serena is unable to get justice for her situation, to get her—

[David Tassillo]

I don't see the direct correlation between the two, but, as I mentioned many times, if we're given the additional information, we will definitely look into whether those facts are true. It is by no way, shape or form the way we want our site to operate, or any of our sites to operate. As I mentioned to the committee, we have multiple ways to have them removed. I have never heard of an instance. And once again, I'm not saying it didn't happen. It could have been one employee who did the wrong thing or acted in the wrong way. I understand that even though it's an employee, it's our responsibility. It's our company. But we would never allow someone to do that.

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

Could you explain to me the term “middle schooler”? I know what it means. However, there are reports that there are still videos up on your site that say “middle schooler”, that this is a middle schooler being depicted.

[David Tassillo]

There shouldn't be any of those videos. From my understanding at this current point, it is a word that's on the banned list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Viersen.

We're going to turn back to Mr. Erskine-Smith for five minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'll turn to Charlie for the first two-and-a-half minutes, and then it will come back to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Very good.

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You know you're going to have to keep me on a leash because I don't want to eat into my colleague's time, but I do want to follow up on something that I was absolutely gobsmacked by.

Mr. Antoon, you're the chief executive officer, right, of MindGeek Canada?

[Feras Antoon]

Correct.

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

Okay.

My colleague just asked you about a Globe and Mail article where formatters raised an issue of egregious abuse and were told to park it—that they weren't going anywhere. You don't remember the article. You didn't know what it was about. You said it was journalists making things up. And then I think your colleague asked our committee to maybe give you some more information. The issue we're talking about here is criminal behaviour, the Criminal Code. Your obligation is to protect people and there's your complete disregard for an accusation raised in one of Canada's most respected newspapers. You didn't even bother to read it.

When you come in here and tell us how much you care about the victims, it strikes me, Mr. Antoon, that you show a staggering level of recklessness that's just been made apparent here. We've asked you about Ms. Fleites. She blew your business model apart. You've had three months to investigate this and you showed up at our committee and said, sorry, we haven't found anything. You made her give you her pictures over to you. You made her give her ID. You dragged this child out and destroyed her life. And then you showed up at our committee, after you had to flush 80% of your content down the toilet because it was either nonconsensual or possibly criminal behaviour, and you shrugged. And you're asked about your own staff, whose job it is to protect people, and you didn't bother to know what the allegations were. I think, sir, you are extremely negligent and we're talking about possible criminal acts here.

[Feras Antoon]

Mr. Angus, as I clearly said, I did read the Globe and Mail article. I don't remember all of it. It was released yesterday—

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

You didn't remember all of it.

[Feras Antoon]

Yes. It was released yesterday, Thursday. So, yes, in the middle of what's happening I did go over it. Now, as David clearly said—

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

And you said journalists were making things up.

[Feras Antoon]

I said that because it's a journalist's article, it doesn't mean that it's factual.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'll pick up on that, Charlie.

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

Thank you.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Just to follow up on that point, there was a Vice investigation in relation to your state-of-the-art video fingerprinting that suggested that a video that was gently modified could be easily uploaded. Was that journalist making things up, or did you take action to rectify the situation?

[David Tassillo]

We did realize over time that the software we were using from a third party wasn't perfect. They used the term “gently”. I can't confirm or deny how much they actually modified the original—