Public Safety Committee on Oct. 10th, 2024

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

You don't specifically share with Instagram or TikTok. There's nothing that goes directly to them. There's nothing in your policy or regulations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We're going to have to cut this off.

[David Agranovich]

We do both. We share directly with other technology companies' security teams when we see operations that target their platforms. We also share publicly, in part because these operations often target very small companies that may not have a security team.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We will now turn the floor over to Mr. Fortin for six minutes.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Curran, we feel that Meta has a lot of power over the information that circulates in Canada and Quebec. The Internet is a medium that's evolving quickly, even from one day to the next.

I don't want to go back over another position that was stated in another committee, but we've noticed in recent months that Meta has blocked the publication of certain newspaper articles in particular. That's obviously not the best way to inform Canadians and Quebeckers about important situations that concern them.

There also seems to be a lot of false information circulating on Facebook and other social media as well. A lot of misinformation and disinformation are circulating on Facebook particularly. However, we don't sense that Meta is concerned about the situation. Instead we get the impression that Meta is trying to make a profit and that, if the profit isn't there, then it's too bad about information and democracy. I think that's quite a widespread opinion.

That may not be the case, however, and I'm giving you an opportunity to set the record straight, if necessary. If it is the case, however, please tell us honestly that your purpose is to make money and that democracy and information aren't your business. Is that the case? I'll let you answer the question.

[Rachel Curran]

I think that's incorrect.

Listen, I think you're talking about a couple of different issues.

The first is removal of news from our platforms. We would love to restore news to Facebook and Instagram. The reason we had to remove it from our platforms is that the current government introduced and passed Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which was going to require us to pay approximately $80 million a year for content that had no particular commercial value to us. In fact, we think we provided great value to news publishers. We estimated there was $230 million per year to publishers in distribution value. We worked with Le Devoir, with La Presse and with publishers in Quebec across the board to distribute their content on Facebook and Instagram and get it to larger audiences. We think we were very successful in doing that.

The current government introduced legislation that gave us no option but to remove news from our platforms or we were going to have to pay for it. My colleagues at Google are currently still enmeshed with the CRTC in trying to figure out how this scheme is going to work.

We would love to restore news to our platforms. We could do that tomorrow if we were scoped out of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, if the legislation was repealed or even if publishers were given the option to opt in or opt out of that legislation. We could restore news content to our platforms tomorrow. As a Canadian, I would love to do that. I would love to see Canadian news back on our platforms. I would love to see news from Quebec back on our platforms.

We are unable to do that within the legislative framework of Bill C-18, but I think that can be fixed.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

If I understand you correctly, Ms. Curran, the problem stems from the fact that it would cost Meta $18 million a year to publish that news. Am I to understand that this $18 million is the price Meta would have to pay for information and democracy? Do you mean it isn't worth more than that?

[Rachel Curran]

No, not at all. In fact, I would argue that we still have content on our platform from non-governmental organizations. We still have content from academic institutions—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Pardon me for interrupting, but time is—

[Rachel Curran]

We still have content from regular Canadians that we would consider credible and accurate.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I apologize, Ms. Curran, but our time is short, and we only have a minute left.

I understand your position. I expected you would tell me exactly what you're telling me now. In the current circumstances, however, we're dealing with this problem regarding disinformation originating from Russian authorities. Everyone in Canada is concerned. However, we know that many ordinary citizens get their news from social media. Rightly or wrongly, one could wish that things were different, but that's the way they are.

I personally wonder about Meta's social responsibility. I'm talking about Meta because I'm speaking to you, but I could just as easily be talking about all other social media, which aren't exempt from responsibility in this matter. However, you have an important, even vital, role to play by making available to citizens information that may help maintain our democracy. People expected—at least we did—that organizations wielding that much power would have a greater sense of responsibility. I know that Facebook could easily pay $18 million a year and play a significant role in supporting democracy in Canada.

Would you please tell me briefly whether you agree with that view and outline your views on this issue?

[Rachel Curran]

Mr. Fortin, I agree that we should have news content on our platforms. We would love to have news content on our platforms, including from news outlets in Quebec. We had private deals worth in excess of $20 million with private news outlets. We would love to have that content back on our platforms.

We can't do it within the very restrictive framework that Bill C-18 presents. If we are scoped out of Bill C-18, or if news outlets are given the option to opt in or opt out of Bill C-18, we would love to put them back on our platforms.

We have worked with news outlets in Quebec. We would love to work with them again, and we could turn that content on again tomorrow.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

I now turn the floor over to Mr. Boulerice for six minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks as well to the witnesses who have taken the time to come and meet with us today. I will now turn to the representatives of the three companies here present.

We all use your platforms, as do millions of people in Quebec and Canada. I think it's important to take a step back and admit that your companies weren't established for the purpose of defending democracy. They weren't founded to promote the quality of public debate or democratic ideals; that's not your primary mission. They were established to encourage people to interact with each other, but ultimately to make money and profits.

However, as a result of evolving technologies, you now have an additional responsibility. That responsibility was previously borne by the mainstream media for years, but it's now up to your companies to adopt clear rules for avoiding misinformation, disinformation, manipulation and foreign interference, even though that wasn't your original purpose. As MPs and elected officials, we are concerned about the situation.

You've come here well prepared, but I know how the committees work. You itemize all the great things you've done, and you talk about the millions of dollars you've spent, all the accounts you've closed and the particular department that's working on the problem. It's hard for us to verify, in five minutes, whether it's all true. I imagine it's true.

However, we can see that, even though you've spent a lot of money, misinformation and disinformation are still out there, and we're still worried about them. Consequently, I don't want to know what you've done, but rather what you intend to do to improve the situation in circumstances where countries such as Russia only want to exploit social divisions and cause chaos in our societies. What will you do to reassure us and improve the situation in future?

[Rachel Curran]

Let me chime in here first.

Meta has the largest independent fact-checking network of any online platform. We have more than 90 independent fact-checkers in more than 60 languages who are checking information on our platforms to determine whether it is misinformation or disinformation. If they determine it is false or partly false, we label those posts and that content, or we remove it from our platforms.

My colleague, Mr. Agranovich, has talked about malicious disinformation from state actors, but disinformation or misinformation from other sources is something we send through our fact-checking network of more than 90 fact-checkers now.

In Canada, that work is done by Agence France-Presse. We are also working, potentially, with another Canadian partner in advance of the next election to review that information as well. It's very much our goal to make sure that misinformation and disinformation are removed from our platforms.

That said, though, we are also a platform to connect Canadians and ensure that Canadians are able to share information, share their views and connect with their friends and family, and we want to do that without suppressing or limiting their ability to express themselves.

As you can imagine, Mr. Boulerice, that's a fine line. We have to make sure we're not preventing Canadians from expressing themselves while removing misinformation at the same time.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much.

I would ask you to share the time with your colleagues.

[Rachel Curran]

Sorry, I am passionate about this.

[Lindsay Doyle]

Thank you so much for the question.

First and foremost, we absolutely share your concerns with respect to broad disinformation and foreign interference.

We do know that this is a shared responsibility, and it's a responsibility that we absolutely take seriously. Ultimately, for us, the safety of users on our platform is critical, and we absolutely believe that we play a critical role in keeping people safe online.

We do have very clear and rigid policies with respect to misinformation, as well as foreign influence operations and disinformation. We have teams that apply our policies at scale 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As I mentioned earlier, we have our threat analysis group, which actively works to disrupt ongoing activity. That group also shares that information with law enforcement on the ground to ensure that we have a holistic approach across society.

I would appreciate it if my colleague, John, could weigh in perhaps a little bit on exactly what his team is doing. I recognize I have limited time, but perhaps if we still have time....

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Maybe we'll have Mr. de Eyre first, and after that, in the second round, I can come back.

[Lindsay Doyle]

No problem.

[Steve de Eyre]

I'll actually let my colleague, Justin, talk a bit about our policies on misinformation and disinformation.

[Justin Erlich, Global Head, Policy Development, TikTok]

I would chime in and echo what has been said before. We take the responsibility for protecting the integrity of our platform very seriously.

Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. Divisiveness is antithetical to the community that we're trying to create. That's why we work very hard to protect our platform with some of the most aggressive misinformation policies in the industry. We remove any content that we identify that may be significantly harmful to our community, and we won't amplify other content that may be unverified.

We also embrace a strategy of media literacy, knowing that we need to help strengthen the understanding of our community and our users to be more resilient. As our Meta colleague mentioned, we also partner very closely with independent fact-checkers and work with them to assess the veracity and accuracy of all content that is on our platform.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Erlich.

We will terminate this round with Mr. Boulerice.

We will start the second round.

Mr. Motz, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here this afternoon.

I just want to follow up on some of the Bill C-18 conversations with Meta.

Ms. Curran, does the impact of Bill C-18 create a vacuum on your social media platform? It certainly restricts Canadians' access to reliable news content, but does it provide a way for more disinformation or misinformation to be available on those platforms?

[Rachel Curran]

We would say that there is lots of credible information still available on our platforms. There are academic institutions. There are government pages. There are politicians' pages. There are pages from non-governmental organizations and civic organizations. All of that information is still available on our platforms, including information from regular Canadians, which we would not characterize as misinformation either.

However, as a Canadian, I'd love to see Canadian news back on our platforms. We'd love to have the opportunity to put it back on our platforms, and we could do that tomorrow if Bill C-18 were repealed or if we were scoped out of that piece of legislation.