Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 10th, 2024

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

In terms of the channel, when you have social media platforms that are—and I'll give the example of X, previously Twitter—allowing misinformation and disinformation to be propagated, what role do social media giants have in terms of their responsibility to fact-check information?

[Neal Kushwaha]

I feel like Canada tried really hard to push that pressure upon media giants to get them to fact-check, and what happened is that they back-pedalled, obviously, as you know, and removed all access. Unfortunately, that harms Canadians in a different way.

I don't know if there's really any real good answer to this from my side, so I apologize. I don't think I have a solution to that of any kind or even thoughts. I have, unfortunately, negative thoughts on that. I think it will be abused.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. McAndrews, I didn't have a chance and I have no more time, but I just wanted to thank you for giving us that information regarding the June edition of Nature. I will read it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mrs. Romanado.

The floor is now yours for two and a half minutes, Mr. Villemure.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kushwaha, I am going to ask you a tough question. For the last 20 years, we have been watching news agencies like Agence France-Presse disappear. There actually are fewer than there were before. So the media are drawing on the few remaining sources.

Personally, I remember that when I was in Africa in 2012—I was in Libya—the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi was reported differently in America and Africa.

With few news sources to draw on, and with countless social media sites putting out information, how do we know what is going on today with the situation in Israel and Palestine?

[Neal Kushwaha]

There are a number of sources today. I know people who get information on Telegram or Signal. In small WhatsApp groups, for example, there are a few videos or—

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

That is not for the average person.

[Neal Kushwaha]

True. It's difficult.

I really don't think people care as much about human life and human dignity as we think they should. If we did, we would stop death and dismemberment immediately, and then you wouldn't need to share videos of horrific events or of children washing up on shores, which we've seen, and be reminded that happened nine or 10 years ago, “Oh, yeah, I remember that.” What do we do about it?

If you really care about human life and human dignity, do something.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. McAndrews, I am going to ask you the same question: How can the average person know what is going on with the situation in Israel and Palestine, given the lack of credible sources like news agencies, and given everything that is out there to read?

[John McAndrews]

The Israel-Palestine conflict is not my area of expertise, but I'm happy to speak more generally. I think that different actors need to be empowered to detect, rapidly, misinformation in a flexible way, and that this can be shared publicly or on platforms in order to take potential mitigating action.

Civic and scientific media literacy is critical. This committee heard from MediaSmarts and from civics experts in this field and should continue to learn and to support efforts to promote media and scientific literacy. These things need to be evidence-based and up-to-date, and researchers can play a role in helping those materials stay up to date with changing technology.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

The public do not know whether sources are based on fact or fiction. I think the problem is that the media's credibility has been tarnished. Today, someone with an opinion about something, vaccines for example, can say whatever they want, and people have no way of knowing what is true. Earlier, Mr. Kushwaha said the truth doesn't matter. Say your elderly aunt wants to find out about something: She will never know whether the information is true or false.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

It is a real problem, as I said to Mr. Kushwaha before the meeting today.

Thank you, Mr. Villemure.

Mr. Green, you have two and a half minutes, sir. Go ahead.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Professor McAndrews, can you provide examples—I know you referenced the European example—of other jurisdictions' best practices for countering the impacts of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation in the work of parliamentarians?

[John McAndrews]

That is a great question and one that I ask to be able to return to the committee with a further brief on the subject.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That would be very helpful, and we encourage you to get that in. As you know, your testimony forms the recommendations of the substantive work. We don't get to do it in these studies. It really does come from subject matter experts.

Perhaps you can share a bit about some misconceptions about misinformation, disinformation and malinformation that you might have come across in your research, that might be generally accepted but might not actually be the truth when it comes to those subjects.

[John McAndrews]

I'll make two observations.

Again, from a recent issue of Nature, we may be misperceiving the volume of misinformation on social media. We may be overestimating it. This is why it's important for researchers to have access to these data to maintain the ability to detect flexibly mis- and disinformation, but we may be overestimating the prevalence of misinformation. My colleagues at the Media Ecosystem Observatory measure the prevalence of misinformation in a certain way, and that estimate strikes me as rather low. That's available in their monthly situation reports. That's one area.

The second is the causal relationship. We might imagine or fear, indeed, that social media misinformation is polarizing people, but the alternative possibility is that people with extreme views are exposed to social media misinformation. That kind of uncertainty is important to address through high-quality, public, scientific research on an ongoing basis, because it is a moving target. This technology is changing, so sustained attention is required in Canada. A lot of this research is in the United States, and Canada is not the United States. Research in Canada is very much necessary here as well.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I would tend to agree.

Thank you so much to both witnesses for joining us here today.

Those are my questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

I have time for two two-and-a-half-minute rounds, and then I need a little bit of time at the end in regard to the correspondence that was shared with committee members today from X. We just need to discuss that briefly after we're done, and I expect it to be very brief.

Mr. Barrett, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

We've heard reports of hostile foreign entities and foreign regimes that have been funding violence, like the pro-Hamas, pro-terror and anti-Semitic demonstrations that we've been seeing on Canadian streets, without any consequences. This is as a result of a failure by the government to actually designate these groups as what they are. Samidoun is one; they enjoy non-profit status currently in Canada. The Houthis in Canada are legally allowed to fundraise, recruit and organize. They both should clearly be banned.

What should the government be doing to detect this foreign-backed interference that leads to intimidation, both of political and non-political actors, and the promotion of hatred on our streets? These two are very clear. Using open-source information and simple observation allows people to determine this, but these groups are self-declared in doing what they're doing.

We've made the assertion they should be banned. What should the government be doing to detect these activities in a proactive way?

What you permit, you promote, so Canadians would believe that the information being spread by these bad actors is okay. It's legitimized by the government by virtue of the fact that they failed to take any action to criminalize these groups.

[Neal Kushwaha]

That's interesting: “What you permit, you promote”.

I would hope that the public has the sense to look things up and make educated decisions and formulate their own outcomes, but I see where you're going in terms of what you're attempting to describe. I appreciate it.

What can the government do?

From a policy perspective, there's quite a bit in place already. The challenge is that funds come from many sources. At the centre, we have an entire technology team, and we've been able to track transactions coming from foreign sources into Canada over cryptocurrency, but I also see them leaving Canada. I found organizations in Canada that will say, “Hey, we'll handle your transactions, and we'll funnel them all into this one entity, and then we'll funnel them out,” so you can no longer trace source to destination.

While you can see the wallets, you don't know exactly who owns the wallet. Nevertheless, you can see transactions happening, and that complicates things because it looks like we're sending money out as well as receiving. Are we performing some form of influence upon others as much as they're performing on us?

If it's the citizens who are doing this, it could be considered unlawful. You have to have evidence and you have to have intent, in Canada at least. I feel that those are very difficult to capture in the financial realms, even for FINTRAC or the RCMP, because those wallets are meant to be anonymous.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Kushwaha.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have two and a half minutes.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kushwaha, I am going to speak in French, because this is a subject of considerable interest to my constituents in Châteauguay—Lacolle, soon to be called Châteauguay—Les Jardins-de-Napierville.

We are big users of platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, for example. We heard testimony about Tenet Media in Montreal, a company that was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

What would be the best steps to take, the best measures, to protect Canadians, including from themselves, when it comes to that kind of campaign?

[Neal Kushwaha]

That is interesting. We are doing a study right now on the most heavily used online platforms.

Take the example of TikTok and other services that may be offered in Chinese. There are also Instagram, which is mainly in the United States, and Facebook. Separately, we find that there are far more Instagram users in Canada than TikTok users. Instagram users in general outnumber TikTok users by far. So it is very interesting to see our partners in the United States enacting legislation to regulate the use of TikTok but not really of Instagram.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Right. That is interesting. Why do you think that is? Is it because it is an American company?

[Neal Kushwaha]

I don't know why it is, but I think they don't want to set up services that would make it easy for people to pass on information from China or other countries, not from the United States.

We do not have these services in Canada, so it is really hard for Canada to regulate and manage the information that is passed on to people.