Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2018

[Carlos Monje, Director of Public Policy, Twitter - United States and Canada, Twitter Inc.]

Thank you, Chair, for the invitation to appear today and for the opportunity to share our perspective.

My name is Carlos Monje. I'm the director of policy and philanthropy for Canada and the United States. With me is Ms. Michele Austin, the head of government, public policy, and philanthropy at Twitter Canada.

I apologize that we are not able to be with you today, though I was pleased to travel to Ottawa in January to brief Elections Canada and the Office of the Minister of Democratic Institutions on Twitter's approach to information quality, generally, and ads transparency, specifically.

Twitter connects people to what's happening around the world. One of the reasons people come to Twitter is that it is the best place to engage with and learn from political leaders and policy advocates. Twitter works with political parties across Canada to connect them with users, including through advertising.

We are committed to increasing transparency for all ads on Twitter, including political ads. In late 2017, we announced first steps in a series of changes on our platform to further promote freedom of expression, privacy, and transparency. Specifically, Twitter has launched a program to dramatically increase ads transparency. In addition to providing additional transparency for all advertising on the platform, we are piloting an effort in the United States to protect the integrity of our platform and our users by imposing additional eligibility restrictions and certification requirements on all advertisers who wish to purchase political ads.

We're going to increase awareness of paid political messaging by appending a visual badge on the face of paid political communications to make it clear when users see or engage with the political ad.

We're going to include disclaimer information regardless of the method of advertising—whether that's text, graphics, video, or a combination of those—in the most technologically practical way, and we're launching a political ads transparency centre that will provide users with additional details regarding the targeting demographics of each political campaign ad and the organization that funded it.

Once we have analyzed our U.S. experience with this pilot, and have made the necessary refinements, we will launch it to other markets, including Canada. There are ways in which digital communications are functionally and technologically different from ads placed on other media, including television, radio, and airplanes, as we heard in the panel beforehand.

We offer self-service to give advertisers control over what products they want to use on our platform and who sees them. Advertisers also create their own content. Often advertisers will use multiple advertising tools on the platform, using media like video or creating an emoji. Advertisers will often want to manage more than one @ handle associated with their brand. They want to work with multiple internal team members, with partners, with agencies, or with clients who also have access to that account. Advertisers often want to update or change content quickly as the campaign unfolds in real time.

Twitter supports the intentions of Bill C-76, the election modernization act. Twitter supports efforts to provide clear rules to advertisers who wish to purchase paid political communications on digital media and devices.

We ask the committee for some clarity, specifically around two clauses in the bill—clauses 282.4 and 491.2—which regulate how ads are sold and how the new rules will be enforced. These concerns include how “intent” and “knowingly” will be measured and proven with regard to hosting ads, how Elections Canada will enforce these changes, how suspicious activity will be reported, the ability of Elections Canada to act in real time, and misidentifying accounts of real users and how that will be remedied.

Twitter will need more time to complete our due diligence on the proposed changes and on how the platform will comply with them to host advertising, including by political parties.

In conclusion, Twitter is dedicated to and proud of our users' and advertisers' rights to speak freely. We also believe that giving users more context about political advertising is key to a healthier democratic debate. We look forward to continuing our work to improve our services and to working with you.

We look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you very much.

We will go right to those questions.

We'll start with Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I think, as for all of us around the table, that mine is a bit of a conflicted experience, because we're probably all on Facebook and Twitter and we see them as effective tools to communicate with our constituents—I've even communicated with them today, regarding questions that were answered on my posts—but there's a very dark side to both of your platforms and I don't know that either of your organizations has really done much to combat that.

I'll give an example—and I don't mean to focus on Facebook, because Twitter is just as complicit.

It's an experience that happened to me. I had a small group of white supremacists protesting outside of my office, but just a few of them. I made the mistake of calling them white supremacists on Facebook and the white supremacist community came down on me. I searched through the organizer's Facebook page and I came across a post he had. I don't want to mention the MP's name because I don't want to bring them into this debate. I know Facebook has received a copy of this ad and you gave me the glossy handbook of what to do with offensive content.

The ad had a picture of the MP, identified that MP as an immigrant, and this individual said, “Canadian sniper takes out a target at 3 km. No one can put a bullet in this douche canoes head? Seriously come on people”. I clicked on that—someone calling on the assassination of an elected Canadian member of Parliament—and said that this really is offensive and that in the wide frame of what is free speech, clearly this is on the other side. I got a message back that, “This didn't violate our community standards”. Then I sent it to the minister's office because I know the minister's office is in communication with Facebook, and that message continued.

If that doesn't violate the community standards of your organization, Mr. Chan, how can we trust you to engage in any of these promises that you're going to assist in preserving our democracy? It just seems that making as much money as possible is the goal, which is fine—that's what corporations do—but there doesn't seem to be any accountability back to the people that a newspaper would have or another organization would have.

I'll open the floor to you. It's not translated, and I know you've received a copy of it, but could you comment on this and about how we can trust your organization?

[Kevin Chan]

Thank you for the question, sir. I have to admit, since you didn't refer to it, I don't know specifically which piece of content this is, but if it is the one I'm thinking of, I believe you'll discover that it's no longer on the platform.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

It's no longer on the platform. Is it because I'm a member of Parliament who's brought it through the minister's office, who has then brought it to your attention? No one has that level of access.

Following this—

[Kevin Chan]

So I—

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Sorry. Let me finish.

Following that, as it didn't violate community standards, when the death threats started against me on your platform, I didn't bother reporting them. I reported them to the RCMP and corporate security, but why bother going through that exercise? If a call for assassination isn't a violation, why should I bother reporting the death threats to me? Both organizations are difficult platforms to regulate, and there doesn't seem to be a great deal of assistance. I know, Mr. Chan, that you have a plan to come up with a plan in phase two, before the next election, but where does that leave us? It's a very frightening thing. We've seen the results in Britain and in the United States, and see how divisive politics is becoming in all of our countries and the potential for foreign actors to be using that. I need more answers than, “We're going to come up with a plan”.

[Kevin Chan]

May I, sir?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Yes, please.

[Kevin Chan]

With all due respect, I think what I just went through in my opening statement is more than just a plan. We are actually implementing things on the platform, including “view ads”. When it was launched in November as a product whereby anybody can see all the ads that are running on Facebook, it didn't exist anywhere else in the world.

The Canadian election integrity initiative is not a plan. It, in fact, is implemented. We have done the same thing in Ontario— but let me return to that in a moment.

To answer your specific question, now that I have a copy of this in front of me, my understanding is that this content is no longer on Facebook. With respect to general content on Facebook, we are governed by a set of community standards that are universal in nature, and you can read up on that at facebook.com/communitystandards. The standards actually do, in fact, prohibit hate speech and bullying. They also prohibit things like the glorification or the promotion of violence and terrorism and things like that.

What I would say to you, sir, is that when people are actually confronted with content that may be in violation of the community standards...in fact it's designed so that anybody can report this stuff to Facebook. I would actually respectfully disagree that it's not who you know; it's actually just being able to report these things. That's the whole point of having a global platform. If they violate the community standards, then they violate the standards, and the content will be taken down. That's actually how it works.

I would say, more broadly speaking—and I think you alluded to it, sir—that the challenge with a distribution platform, obviously, is that we want to be very careful about giving people the opportunity to express themselves, to have a platform that is for all voices and yet be mindful of the frameworks of our community standards that will indicate or set aside certain things that are not permitted on the platform.

I understand that is, certainly in our experience, challenging. I think in terms of the people's ability to express themselves, it is very rarely black and white. I think there are a lot of grey zones. I think you're absolutely right that in terms of the enforcement of our community standards, that is a challenging enterprise. We have committed to hiring. We'll have 20,000 people, by the end of this year, on the team working on security issues like the ones you mentioned.

I would also say that we have deployed, already, in actuality, artificial intelligence technology to be able to better detect prohibited content and remove it at scale without human review. Obviously there is ongoing progress that needs to be made. I would never say that we are perfect, but we do take this very seriously. I just want to make sure that you and other members of the committee understand that we do take this very seriously and we've already invested significantly in these efforts.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. McCauley for seven minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks.

Welcome, everyone.

Mr. Chan, CBC ran an article, I think yesterday or even today, talking about 24 unregistered groups advertising on Facebook for the Ontario election, targeting parties and targeting candidates as well. These ads can obviously have an effect on the outcome of the election. I'm just wondering what Facebook is doing to co-operate with Elections Ontario regarding this.

It's funny, because I wrote up my question earlier today, and then I just got a note that anti-Doug Ford ads are actually going on today during the blackout on Facebook.

What are you doing with Elections Ontario? How are you coordinating with them to address this issue?

[Kevin Chan]

I would just say, sir, in general, that we do have relationships and open communication channels with electoral commissions around the world and in Canada—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But, besides relationships, what are you doing actively to co-operate to address this issue?

[Kevin Chan]

To the extent that we receive requests from public authorities, such as Elections Ontario, about content on Facebook—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Have they contacted you regarding the article?

[Kevin Chan]

To my knowledge, we have not received anything from Elections Ontario.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Really?

[Kevin Chan]

Yes, sir.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's interesting.

Do you wait for them to reach out to you? I'm sure you've seen the article on CBC. Do you wait for Elections Ontario or Elections Canada to contact you, or do you proactively address these issues?

[Kevin Chan]

We do proactively address these issues. I want to be a bit careful because it's not really my.... I'm not the expert.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

No, and I realize it's a large company, and you're not physically taking things out.

[Kevin Chan]

Well, no, and I would also say I'm not specifically the expert on election law in Ontario. I'm sure you have read it, as I have, with interest, as well. I think further down there is a bit of an explanation for how advertising should work in the election in Ontario, and how and what obligations are on third parties to register—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right, and Elections Ontario has made a statement claiming these ads are not allowed, yet they're still popping up. That's why my question is, how are you co-operating? How are you working to ensure people are not putting up ads when they're not allowed?

[Kevin Chan]

Again, sir, I can get into specifically some of the new initiatives we're piloting in the United States, but, generally, as we have done—including at the time when the Commissioner of Canada Elections and Facebook Canada did work for the 2015 election—we obviously respond to investigative requests from public authorities.