Justice Committee on June 4th, 2019

[Colin McKay]

Sure.

First, speaking specifically to Europe, which has in place a code of conduct around hate speech and very clear reporting obligations, we've arrived at a point where 83.8% of the content that has been flagged for review is assessed in less than 24 hours, and 7.9% in less than 48 hours.

That gives you a bit of an idea of the window within which content that deals with hate can be reviewed appropriately. Obviously, from our point of view, we're trying to improve on that.

The way we work within this broad organization of 10,000 is that we have very clear-cut internal review, and established guidelines for those review teams, around what the expectations and obligations are within each jurisdiction and what is explicitly illegal, and then what we would consider borderline illegal that requires some level of intervention on YouTube to restrict access to that content.

Internal to the company, like any multinational, we have a team that's dedicated to identifying both the differences and the similarities, and ensuring that we are in compliance.

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

Have you seen, through the work that you do in the very different countries you operate in, that some countries are more successful in curbing hate speech online through their legislation than others?

[Colin McKay]

This is an observation that's just off the top of my head, and it's personal. I would say that we are seeing a variety of efforts to deal with this challenge. They're based within, as I said, the social and political context of each country, and the level of immediacy and severity being applied to the issue reflect local pressures. The difficulty for us still remains understanding those social, economic and political pressures and the context within which we can interpret them, using our systems to deliver a result that's acceptable to those jurisdictions, governments and societies. From country to country, one thing we've seen is that, if there's a more coordinated and collaborative effort to arrive at complementary and similar approaches, if not shared principles and legislation, that effort can have a broader and more recognizable impact, especially for users.

I'll point to an example. You have a juxtaposition between New Zealand and Australia in reaction to the Christchurch attack, where the Prime Minister of New Zealand took on this approach to develop a call that brought in all the stakeholders to develop an aggressive approach to dealing with this, but not an immediate approach. Australia went the other way and implemented legislation, which, it was quickly realized, needs to be reconsidered in Parliament. That's not to say the intent and execution of that legislative process was wrong; it's just that it still needs further deliberation. I think that's the challenge we face. We're in the space now where, as I said, we all share concern, we all want to act on it, and we want to act on it in a way that has impact.

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

Thank you.

You spoke about how you have one global team and that you train them. You also addressed the challenge of understanding the social and cultural factors within each country. Do you think that you would be better helped if you had teams in the countries you operate in who understand specifically the social and cultural factors that impact hate speech in that specific country?

[Colin McKay]

I think the first step is to have a clear idea of what the boundaries are for terms like “hate speech” and “violent extremist content”, because as a company, we're still interpreting and trying to define our perception of what society finds acceptable and what you as legislators in government find acceptable. The first step for us would be what a clear definition is, so that we can act upon it, because that's often where we have points of contention as to what exactly is the expectation around takedown and restriction or limiting access on content, especially if it's related to hate more than violent extremism.

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

Do you think there's one common definition of hate speech across the world or common threads of a definition that you think we could work with internationally?

[Colin McKay]

I mentioned the definition that we act upon, and it's very broad. We find that a reliable reference point for our activities. Often it's in commentary and political discourse where it's challenging to interpret whether or not that line has been crossed. There are baseline documents that already exist on human rights and legal obligations that we certainly reference, and we speak regularly to both government and legislators as well as to NGOs to make sure that we're aware of how that conversation has evolved and that we're filtering in the right way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you so much.

I just have one question to follow up on Ms. Khalid's and Ms. Moore's question. How many of the 10,000 people who do the vetting are based in Canada?

[Colin McKay]

Very few.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Would it be zero?

[Colin McKay]

It's not zero, no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Just to follow up the other question that Ms. Moore asked about the French language, I understand that you have translation software. Everybody's seen Google Translate. It's a great help to meet people in a baseline sense, but obviously that's not an effective way to understand the terminology used online. Do you have people with native language skills in all of these multiple languages who put in the search terms?

[Colin McKay]

I can't confidently say that for every language.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Let's say French.

[Colin McKay]

In French, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Okay.

Your assistance here today and the fact that Google is willing to work with us in this way is incredibly appreciated, Mr. McKay. I really want to thank you.

We have another meeting, but it's in camera. What I would ask is that we take a five-minute suspension, and then we will ask everybody who shouldn't be here to clear the room.

I want to thank everyone.

We'll suspend the meeting for five minutes.

[Colin McKay]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

The meeting is adjourned.