Evidence of meeting #130 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was disinformation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'm just spitballing here. Threads doesn't seem to be nearly as toxic as X. Is there an algorithm that's driving that lower level of toxicity in Threads?
Senior Fellow and Co-Director, Technology and International Affairs Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
It's difficult to say, because we know very little about the internal governance of these platforms, and that's an important research and governance problem in and of itself.
It is clear that at the high level of business strategy and corporate leadership, Mark Zuckerberg wants Threads to be relatively anodyne and devoid of political content and controversy—more of a feel-good place—whereas Elon Musk wants X to be a wild and free-spirited environment in which people can get their kicks.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Okay. That's it.
Thank you, Mr. Fisher.
Thank you, Mr. Bateman.
Mr. Villemure, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bateman, I would like to continue along the same lines as my predecessor, because I find this very interesting. You say that businesses could favour positive content. It's a matter of algorithms, and it would probably affect their bottom line.
Nowadays, it seems that common decency has gone the way of the dodo. We see a lot of toxic content, with seemingly no boundaries. So I'm going to ask you a very theoretical question: Do you believe that social media companies should be forced to apply rules of common decency?
Senior Fellow and Co-Director, Technology and International Affairs Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
I would have to know more about what that looks like. What I would say is that, as much as social media companies bear a partial culpability for the degradation of discourse in society, they are far from solely responsible. The solution of government direct regulation of social media algorithms and design comes with many of its own challenges, including freedom of expression and other liberties, so it's not an easy call.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Certainly, when we talk about freedom of expression, it's quite difficult. However, freedom of expression, which is the ability to say things, does not give someone permission to say everything. Even if social media companies are the vehicle used, should there be a better initial framework for speech, given the limits of freedom of expression and the kind of privilege to offend others that people have given themselves?
Senior Fellow and Co-Director, Technology and International Affairs Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
I agreed that freedom of speech is not unlimited. Let me try to answer the question this way. In most democracies, we do not want to trust the government with a direct ability to police and control speech, yet we also have great suspicion of these technology platforms because of their profit incentive and demonstrated history of bad behaviour, so where does that leave us? We're between a rock and a hard place.
I think that, in the long term, we need to find some kind of third way, some blended or hybrid governance approach that avoids both of these problems—and I will give Facebook credit, at least for this oversight board that they created. I don't know what kind of effect it has had and no other platform has duplicated it, but it's at least an experiment in trying to develop a third way. I think that should be a greater discussion.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Villemure and Mr. Bateman.
Mr. Green, you have two and a half minutes. Please go ahead.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Bateman, I recognize you're not an expert in the Canadian context, but certainly there's an application for all elected officials. When elected officials, or in our case parliamentarians, are targeted by malicious actors, what strategy can we use to protect ourselves and remedy the harms to us and to Canada's political system?
Senior Fellow and Co-Director, Technology and International Affairs Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
It's difficult for me to give advice because I think a working elected politician is probably smarter than I am about how to handle the push and pull of aggressive politics, including even foreign actors, but there are a few options in the tool kit. One is that, if something is blatantly transgressing legal and normative boundaries, like involvement from a foreign actor, it can be disclosed—and you might even garner sympathy for that.
However, I think that, often, if there's a false narrative circulating, there's actually a difficult decision about whether to respond to it and, thus, give it credence and maybe even elevate the number of people who are thinking and hearing about it, or whether to just let it lie because, frankly, many influence campaigns and misinformation campaigns are not effective. This is the elephant in the room. We don't know how effective many of these things are. However, many of them are demonstrably ineffective, so that's an important strategic decision.
Professor and Canada Research Chair, McGill University, As an Individual
Yes. I think transparency is key, so I suggest talking about the truth and...that's it.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Are there any resources, perhaps, that we can rely on to ensure that we're not improperly influenced by misinformation, disinformation or malinformation?
Professor and Canada Research Chair, McGill University, As an Individual
There are some disinformation debunking websites in Canada, but again the resources from the government are not enough to make it more effective in society.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
What type of scale do you think it would be—not a precise estimate but in terms of the scale of the problem—and what type of investment might meet the scope of the problem?
Professor and Canada Research Chair, McGill University, As an Individual
For example, as I mentioned, in Taiwan they have very effective fact-checking centres being run by civil society. They have two, and they are basically by donation. Then there are some think tanks that are indirectly supported by the government.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Fung.
We now go to Mr. Cooper for five minutes, followed by Ms. Khalid for five minutes, and that will be the end of the panel.
Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Fung, one of the tools that this government set up, supposedly to counter foreign interference and disinformation during elections, was the directive on the critical election incident public protocol. Are you familiar with that protocol?
Professor and Canada Research Chair, McGill University, As an Individual
I'm not familiar with that protocol.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
You're not familiar with it. Needless to say, it provided that candidates who are the target of disinformation ought to be informed, barring national security considerations. Now, my former colleague, Kenny Chiu, was drowning in a sea of disinformation in Steveston—Richmond East, and he wasn't alone in that regard. Several other Conservative candidates were, including former member of Parliament Alice Wong. Mr. Chiu was kept in the dark in the face of disinformation, but Madam Justice Hogue concluded that there was a reasonable possibility that those narratives from the Beijing regime impacted the result in that riding.
You spoke about the PRC and the connections between the PRC and certain media within Canada. I would note in that regard that at page 17 of the NSICOP report, the NSICOP noted that “Most of these media outlets” in the greater Vancouver area “were linked to the PRC via partnership agreements with the China News Service, the Chinese Communist Party's primary media entity”. Here not only do you have foreign disinformation from Beijing amplified on social media platforms, including WeChat, but you also actually have Canadian-owned news outlets that are amplifying that disinformation.
Can you speak to that, to some of the methods that the Chinese regime is using and to how that can be countered? It certainly was something that may have impacted the result in more than one riding.
Professor and Canada Research Chair, McGill University, As an Individual
Let's talk about Kenny Chiu's case. It was first started in WeChat and WhatsApp. A piece of this information appeared on social media, and then it was spread mainly on the Chinese social media platforms. Then, the next day, a Chinese propaganda newspaper, Today Commercial News, tried to basically copy and paste that message from WeChat and amplify it on the propaganda machines. After that, many other Chinese news articles were written on different Chinese websites, and they fed back to social media. On the radio stations and in the newspapers in the Vancouver area, they also tried to basically invite some commentators on the radio stations to amplify this again.
This is not just on the media because they are being directly controlled by the advertisements from the Chinese merchants in that area. When some of the organizations, let's say, try to organize an event, they will invite the Chinese consulate to attend those events, and they will put that Chinese consulate at a higher position, as a VVIP, than the MP in Canada. If you are an attendee of that meeting, you will know who is the real boss in there and who is the one who can make decisions; it's the Chinese consulate. This message is passed to the Chinese merchants in Richmond or in the Vancouver area, and then it will affect the media in that area.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you for that.
It has been noted, the role that Beijing-based consular officials played in directing disinformation and interfering in the 2021 election, as well as the 2019 election. Notwithstanding that evidence, it must be noted that this Liberal government has done absolutely nothing to hold those consular officials accountable who interfered in our elections and attacked our democracy to the benefit of the Liberal Party.
Now I want to ask you, Mr. Fung.... You talked about the need for transparency. Indeed, that is consistent with what CSIS has recommended: that sunshine is the best disinfectant but that there are challenges with that, particularly in diaspora communities. Do you have any recommendations on how disinformation of the kind that was going on in the 2021 election in Chinese diaspora communities can be effectively countered? There are unique challenges in that regard in getting to people to make them aware of that disinformation.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
We're way over time. I'm going to ask Mr. Fung to respond to that question in writing.
I will have the clerk follow up with you, sir, with regard to exactly what Mr. Cooper is asking for. If you could follow that up in writing, I would appreciate that so that we can move on. Thank you.
I'm sorry, Mr. Cooper. We're over time.
Ms. Khalid, go ahead.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses who have appeared today and shared their expert testimony.
I find it quite weird that the Conservatives make it a big point to make this issue a partisan issue. The reality of the matter is that it is not a partisan issue. As outlined, there have been challenges with how elections have been run and the vulnerabilities our democratic institutions have had.
We've also seen reports recently that the Conservative Party is at risk of foreign interference from Russia, from India, of money being put into artificial intelligence, into bots, into social media campaigns, etc., to sway public opinion in favour of a political party.
I don't think that there's anybody to blame here specifically, but there is accountability that needs to be put in place within all political parties to remove the partisanship from this very serious issue.
Mr. Fung, you had mentioned “fact-checking centres” in your opening remarks. Can you perhaps expand on that concept? What did you mean by that? How would it help in ensuring that our democratic institutions are well protected?