Thank you.
Good afternoon, Chair and committee members.
I'm a professor and Canada research chair at McGill University, and I am a computer scientist. My research interests include AI, cybersecurity and disinformation analysis. I am particularly interested in analyzing disinformation spreading in the Chinese Canadian communities. I am not going to repeat the disinformation examples, as I believe you have already heard many of those examples from different channels in the last few years. Instead, I would like to focus on recommendations that may help in fighting disinformation from the Chinese government.
Let's take a closer look at what other countries have been doing to fight disinformation.
The U.S. government has set up an agency called the Global Engagement Center, which is responsible to counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at influencing the policies and security of the United States. The Global Engagement Center has the authority to pre-empt disinformation from social media. Furthermore, it has a technology engagement division, which plays an important role to transform technologies from concepts to applications at scale and pushes innovations to both public and private sectors.
Another country that is at the front line of fighting disinformation from the Chinese government is Taiwan. My collaborator, Sze-Fung Lee, has done an excellent study. Here, I will highlight a few key points from her research.
Unlike the U.S. model, Taiwan takes a decentralized approach. It has multiple fact-checking centres that are run by the civil societies. This set-up successfully gains the trust of the general public because citizens understand that these fact-checking centres are not controlled by the government and they know they can participate in the process too. Most importantly, they have an effective social network to spread the correct information back to the society.
Taiwan has a few think tanks that analyze the origins, tactics and implications of disinformation. They regularly organize conferences to bring disinformation experts together to facilitate collaboration. There's no conflict between the U.S. model and the Taiwan model. In Canada, we can do both.
My third recommendation is to look into the social media platforms. Social media platforms like WeChat and TikTok play a crucial role in spreading disinformation, despite heavy Chinese government censorship. WeChat, the most popular app, circulates Chinese government-approved propaganda, while accurate Canadian information struggles to reach users. Without the co-operation of social media platforms, any solutions are meaningless. Interventions should include banning bot accounts, restricting posts or adding warning messages. Platforms that do not comply with this new regulation should be subject to evaluations and penalties.
Finally, I would like to share my latest observation. There are two types of social media bots—human bots and AI bots. Human bots are easier to detect as they use specific vocabularies, or sometimes they just follow China's time zone. Their posts typically spread within two to three layers of sharing, mostly staying within the Chinese Canadian community. However, the emerging trend is the AI bots. AI bots can spread disinformation beyond five layers of sharing, even reaching local communities. Therefore, I would like to emphasize that this disinformation issue is not limited to the Chinese Canadian community. With the advancement of AI technologies, all Canadians are affected.
Thank you very much.