Evidence of meeting #43 for Industry and Technology in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Would that suggest that you knowingly allow scammers on your site and do a cost-benefit analysis or risk-benefit analysis as to whether or not they stay?
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
I'm going to disagree wholeheartedly with that. That's bullshit.
Jon, you can talk about this.
We are working towards 90% of our revenue coming from verified advertisers by 2026. We currently are at between 70% and 80%.
Is that correct, Jon? You can speak to this further, but we're working towards 90% of our revenue coming from verified advertisers. There's a reason we're not working towards 100%, which Jon can get into, but we have absolutely zero interest in getting revenue from advertisers who are scammers or fraudsters. That creates an experience on our platforms that is unpleasant and not good for our users, and we want to prevent it to the extent that it's possible.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Okay. I appreciate what you've just said.
Many times, when banks are confronted with clients, customers or consumers who have been defrauded, they come to the table and provide compensation—not in every case, but in a lot of the cases. What do you as Meta do for your customers who have been defrauded on your site? How do you back that up? What recourse do people have with Meta?
Defence Lead, Security Policy, Meta Platforms Inc.
It's a challenge because we have no control over the act of fraud, the act of money transfer. We do not touch. We do not see. That happens in financial institutions.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
I understand that, but what are you doing for people who have been defrauded based on advertising that originates on your platform?
Defence Lead, Security Policy, Meta Platforms Inc.
To be clear, if we know an ad is a scam, we take it down. It is against policies, and it is removed.
Conservative
Defence Lead, Security Policy, Meta Platforms Inc.
We don't have a route or a path to know—
Conservative
Defence Lead, Security Policy, Meta Platforms Inc.
I disagree. We absolutely—
Conservative
Defence Lead, Security Policy, Meta Platforms Inc.
Users are our only valuable commodity as Meta.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thank you very much, Mr. Falk.
For the next line of questions, I have Mr. Ma and Mr. Bardeesy.
Mr. Bardeesy, I'll turn the floor to you first.
Liberal
Karim Bardeesy Liberal Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I want to ask a couple of questions of Meta, and I want to start with Ms. Curran.
I think Canadians are watching this hearing with a lot of interest, given the gravity of what is before us, and I think they'd be very concerned with the unparliamentary language they just heard.
I want to pick up on a point that Mr. Ste-Marie made around the Online News Act. There was a very strong article in the Globe and Mail over the weekend—in which Ms. Quaid was quoted—about the kinds of fraud being seen online, the kinds of protections Canadians should be expecting and the kinds of measures they can take around the all-of-government and all-of-society approach. A colleague of mine just tried to share that article on Facebook platforms and received the following response: “In response to Canadian government legislation, news content can't be shared.”
This is an article that could help millions of Canadians—if they had access to this article through your platforms—respond to the very things that are the subject of this study. Today, could you commit to ensuring that that one Globe and Mail cover article from Saturday in which Ms. Quaid is quoted is not blocked for Facebook and Instagram users?
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
I wish we could MP Bardeesy. The reason we can't is the Online News Act, which prohibits us from sharing Canadian news content on Facebook and Instagram, unless we are willing to sign up to the compensation framework that the government has set out in the Online News Act.
I'm hopeful that we can resolve this with the government and can share Canadian news online again on our platforms. We are working towards that resolution.
Liberal
Karim Bardeesy Liberal Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON
Ms. Curran, I'm talking about one article that gives actionable information to Canadians on how they could help fight fraud.
Director, Public Policy, Meta Canada, Meta Platforms Inc.
That's the problem, though. The Online News Act does not allow us to share even a single article on Facebook or Instagram unless we are subject to the entire framework that is set out in the Online News Act. That is the way the law has been drafted.
Liberal
Karim Bardeesy Liberal Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON
It's a piece of legislation that has been duly passed by this Parliament.
I'll share the rest of my time with Mr. Ma.
Liberal
Michael Ma Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you.
All of our witnesses seem to agree that collaboration is critical for fraud prevention.
I'm going to start with a question for the Meta group. What collaborations have you implemented already?
Defence Lead, Security Policy, Meta Platforms Inc.
As I mentioned briefly in my introduction, we launched the fraud intelligence reciprocal exchange in 2024, and it has scaled the past couple of years. It is bidirectional with banks. We have representation from FS-ISAC, which has many Canadian members as well, and from other banks around the world. There are over 50 banks actively exchanging signals with us for takedowns.
We're also members of the Global Signal Exchange, which is an international non-profit that works with industry, governments and regulatory agencies. They provide their services for free to regulators, and industry pays to participate. We use that to engage with other governments and directly with industries, and we do information sharing for multiple activities.
Liberal
Michael Ma Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
You said you collaborated and implemented a number of measures, yet we're still seeing repeated scams, over and over again.
I'd like to ask Mr. Shipley and Ms. Quaid to comment on that.
Chief Executive Officer, Beauceron Security
One has to almost admire the ingenuity of the criminals.
The reality is that we could be doing so much more. It's just that the financial incentives aren't there to force us to act to align on this. If all of a sudden this starts to cost billions of dollars in revenue, I think they'll get better at stopping the Mark Carney investment scam ads on their platforms.