Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2023

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Can you clarify the difference between selling data and sharing it with third party partners?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Green, I'm sorry, but that's three minutes. I apologize about that. If we're going to stay on time....

We'll go to Mr. Barrett for five. Then we have one more five with Madame Fortier.

Go ahead Mr. Barrett. You have five minutes.

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

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses for being here today.

I have a couple of very important questions to get through, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention why these questions are so important. These questions are important because I know that for local content creators—we were talking about local content before—your platform presents opportunities. What we need to know is what the risks are to people in our community who are using this platform.

There's a great local story in my riding. Corey and Kyle of McMullan Appliance are TikTok famous with their appliance shop. It's this little appliance shop just outside of Smiths Falls, Ontario. They do a tremendous business in sales as a result of a very entertaining TikTok account.

I wish them continued success in that.

What we need to know, of course, is what risks folks are exposed to as a result of using this.

For either of the witnesses, can you tell me about any connection between TikTok and the United Front Work Department? I'm happy to explain what the United Front Work Department is in further detail if more information is needed—other than its being a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party.

Go ahead, Mr. Lieber or Mr. de Eyre.

[Steve de Eyre]

First, thank you for mentioning Corey. I know you've spoken about McMullan Appliance in the House. It's one of my favourite accounts. They've done an amazing job. It shows the global reach of TikTok.

In terms of your question, I'm not familiar with that organization, but I can speak about the Chinese government or the CCP writ large.

TikTok is not available in mainland China. TikTok is not a state-owned enterprise. We are a private organization. ByteDance is a private company. The company is ultimately accountable to the board. Three of those five members of the board are American.

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

I appreciate that you provided some of that information before, Mr. de Eyre. Can you tell me about a connection between Douyin and TikTok?

[Steve de Eyre]

My understanding of Douyin—I've never used it—is that it is a similar product that ByteDance has that is specifically for the Chinese market, because TikTok is only available outside of China.

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

Both are owned by ByteDance.

[Steve de Eyre]

Yes.

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

We have a social media app for mainland China, and we have a social media app for everywhere else. The app everywhere else is TikTok, and the mainland China app is Douyin. These are sister companies.

[Steve de Eyre]

That's a general assessment, yes.

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

There have been media reports that outline what Douyin is used for in mainland China, and it's used as a propaganda tool of the Chinese Communist Party. They pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into their influencer network so that they can affect the propaganda that the Chinese Communist Party is looking to disseminate through the United Front Work Department.

The proximity between these sister companies is the type of thing that gives rise to great concern for us as legislators, for Canadians as users and for us as parents.

What assurances do we have that the techniques that have been documented as being carried out by the Chinese Communist Party and the United Front Work Department using Douyin, the sister app to TikTok, aren't being employed by the dictatorship in Beijing to interfere in our democratic institutions here in Canada or to affect other nefarious purposes that haven't been detected?

[Steve de Eyre]

Thank you for the question. It's a great question, and again I appreciate that you're asking this in terms of ensuring the safety and security of Canadians and your constituents.

I will preface that I work for TikTok. I am not involved in or familiar with.... I have never used Douyin. It is a separate app. TikTok operates for markets outside of mainland China.

Our CEO is a Singaporean. He's based in Singapore. Our general counsel is an American based in the U.S. Our global head of trust and safety is based in Dublin. He is the ultimate authority if you are concerned about things like propaganda videos being recommended. He is the ultimate authority on our community guidelines and what videos come down, and those decisions on content moderation are based on our community guidelines.

I'll just wrap up very quickly. We strive to be very transparent. We have our community guidelines enforcement report, and I will share that with you. We outline in that covert influence operations that we've identified, disrupted and removed from our platform, and I think that speaks to the seriousness with which we take this.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you for that. It sounds like we may expand our witness list here.

Madame Fortier, please go ahead for five minutes.

This is the final round.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will share my speaking time with Ms. Damoff.

Thank you for being here today.

We touched on this earlier, that TikTok has been sanctioned various times for violating regulations that protect the privacy of minors or children who use the application, including the 345 million euro fine levied with respect to the accounts of users under the age of 16 that were configured as public by default. The United Kingdom fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds for the improper use of data belonging to users who are children.

Given this very disappointing lack of diligence with respect to the digital safety of children elsewhere in the world, how can we trust TikTok and its operations in Canada?

My question is for Mr. Lieber or Mr. de Eyre.

[David Lieber]

I'm happy to take that question.

I had mentioned earlier that the investigation that took place with the Irish Data Protection Commission centred around settings that were public and that we had changed before the investigation was commenced. We think we've addressed those issues.

However, I take your point. This is an issue that we approach with determination but also with some humility.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Let me be more direct, Mr. Lieber, since I do not have much time left.

What measures are you taking to ensure the safety of minors and children?

[David Lieber]

They are the measures that we discussed. We make the accounts of users who are under 16 private by default. We disable direct messaging for that universe of users. We impose a 60-minute time limit on the use of TikTok, which is a daily time limit, and we limit live streaming to only those users who are over age 18. Those are protections that are industry leading, which we've led on, and we think they protect the privacy and safety of our teenage users.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

My next question pertains to consent. I know we also touched on this, but I want to make sure I understood you correctly. How can you be sure that minors actually consent to the collection of data on your platform, among others?

[David Lieber]

There are certain data elements which, if any company requests them from users, they will need to obtain consent from them. That's more sensitive information like contact lists or precise location information, which we do not ask for, unlike most of our competitors. We've made decisions about the data we collect in a pretty deliberate way, and we've chosen not to collect data that would be very useful for the company, I think, in order to protect the privacy not only of our teenage users but of our user base writ large.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

I will let Ms. Damoff take it from here.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mona.

I want to go back to the line of questioning I was using before about young people, because I don't think adults understand how much data they're sharing with social media companies. It's not just youth. Certainly, teenagers have no concept of what kind of data you're able to collect and the influence you can have on their interests and the types of things they see. I worry particularly about those who are impressionable and vulnerable and the type of information they receive.

Can you maybe go into a little bit more information on how you're trying to educate teenagers about what they're sharing and what influence that has?

[Steve de Eyre]

I'd be happy to.

As I think I mentioned in my opening statement, I'm a father. We live in Oakville North—Burlington. This is something that's really important to me as my kids are coming of age and starting to explore online.

I think we've outlined a few times the settings that we have in place. One thing we may not have mentioned is that, if you're under 16, your videos will not be eligible for recommendation into the “for you” feed, so those will not come up for other users as they come out. We also work extensively with the non-profits that I've mentioned. They're doing some great work. Canada has some of the best non-profits in the world on these issues.

We've hosted sessions with Digital Moment, for example. They're based out of Montreal. We had a youth session at our office in Toronto, where they brought in a number of youth from the area to talk about algorithms, understand how algorithms work and what algorithm bias is. This is an industry issue. It's not unique to TikTok, but we know we are a popular platform and that we have responsibility and a role to play here.

Going to Madame Fortier's question about consent, we know this is something for young people that's in Bill C-27, which is something we're looking forward to being engaged on, especially as it's in committee now. We think there's definitely a role for government and a need to update Canada's privacy laws.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff.

I want to thank both of our witnesses for being here today, Mr. de Eyre and Mr. Lieber. We certainly could have gone on longer. Unfortunately, circumstances dictated that we had to shorten the meeting. I want to thank you both for being here as part of this important study of this committee.

Ms. Khalid, I have Mr. Barrett first. There are a couple of hands.

Let me dismiss the witnesses, and then we can start.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

That's just it. I wanted to make my point while the witnesses are still here, if that's okay, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay, go ahead while the witnesses are still here.