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?