Evidence of meeting #150 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was online.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Barrister and Solicitor, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
What mechanism is there for somebody to determine that something on an online platform is hateful? For example, Facebook says that it's content-neutral, that it's a marketplace of ideas and that it doesn't police speech.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Facebook takes down terrorism content already. They take down child porn content already. They take down content already according to existing laws. They apply existing laws, so we're asking them to apply the laws with respect to hate speech. If they get it wrong and someone says that Facebook got it wrong, then they take it to court.
Why is that so hard?
Barrister and Solicitor, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
The criticism out of the United States and certain other pundits is that Facebook is violating its own premise by taking down speech when it represents to the public—
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
You're raising distraction concerns that I'm not raising at all.
Barrister and Solicitor, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
I'm not; I'm answering your question. Maybe you don't understand the answer I'm trying to give you, but it is an answer to your question.
Facebook says that it's a marketplace of ideas and that it's neutral, yet it is policing speech. They're taking down speech. My question for you is: Who is determining whether or not something is hateful?
You're advocating that there should be liability for an organization like Facebook if it doesn't take down hate speech fast enough. My question is who's deciding that? That's the problem.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith, but your time is up. It was very interesting.
Thank you to both of the witnesses. You have offered a different perspective from what some other witnesses have offered, and that's the importance of the marketplace of ideas. Whether we agree or do not agree with everybody's views on everything, we have the right to express them in a tribunal like this at Parliament. We can have an exchange. That's the important thing.
I just want to end by saying that there have been a lot of presumptions about what the committee is or is not going to do. This committee is looking at defining...looking at how to track and looking at how to educate. A lot of the things we're looking at go well beyond the question of what we're now calling “policing”. Hopefully, all parties on this committee will be able to deliver something that all sides might agree with.
We really appreciate your testimony today. We have an in camera session for a few minutes after this.
[Proceedings continue in camera]