Public Safety Committee on April 26th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

I would now like to invite Mr. MacGregor to take the last six-minute slice of this round.

Mr. MacGregor, the floor is yours, sir.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses who are aiding our committee in this study.

Mr. Balgord, maybe I'll start with you. On the subject of Elon Musk, I was reading some of his tweets. In one that stuck out with me, he likened Twitter to sort of being the next iteration of the “public town square”, and how in this digital space it was important to protect people's abilities to voice their opinions and to enshrine free speech.

I guess the main issue with social media on a variety of platforms is that it allows users to cloak themselves in anonymity. For example, I can't just go out among the public and start shouting obscenities and directing hate speech against identifiable groups, because I'll be held liable. People will see who I am. I can be held to account for my actions. But the cloak of anonymity is very prevalent on many social media platforms. There have also been problems with fake accounts being set up, and with troll factories, bot farms and so on.

If social media companies to date have been wildly unsuccessful at tackling that problem, could you perhaps offer some comments on whether or not you foresee the role of the ombudsperson that you mentioned tackling that issue? Perhaps you could expand a bit more on that theme.

[Evan Balgord]

On the issue of anonymity, I think you are entirely correct in how you've kind of diagnosed it. Our public square is more socially located and more democratic, in a sense. If you go spout off in your local Starbucks or Tim Hortons or whatever, you might be held socially responsible for it, whereas you are not online. Of course, now we have the social media companies that are very much not a democratic space. They can make unilateral decisions over who gets to speak, and how and when.

On the issue of anonymity, I do very much take your point that people are more likely to troll and be abusive anonymously. However, we have to look at the case of perhaps a trans teenager whose parents are not supportive and they're looking to connect with a community online. Anonymity for them is safety, as it is for a woman who is perhaps fleeing a domestic violence situation who wants to engage with a social network online. In some cases, anonymity is absolutely the most valuable thing to people who are vulnerable. In the case of individuals overseas as well, where they face very real and very direct persecution by the government, anonymity is the only thing that keeps them safe.

So I don't think making the Internet not anonymous is necessarily the way to go, because there are all these cases where it has unintentional consequences on people who do need safety.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I appreciate your raising that point. I think that is a very fair consideration. Perhaps the focus should be exclusively on the content.

I'd like to turn my next question to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

In your opening remarks, you were talking about the fact that we do have to take social media companies on “with teeth”. In previous testimony from other witnesses in front of this committee, we heard a little bit about how far right and extremist groups are using different avenues to monetize their hate. For example, they may be using platforms like Amazon and Etsy to sell paraphernalia and raise funds that way.

With the work that your organization does, is there anything on that particular subject you can inform our committee on that would help us produce some recommendations to the federal government?

[Wendy Via]

Perhaps I could just clarify the question. Are you talking about their ability to fundraise on some of these online platforms?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Yes. We saw examples of them raising funds through selling paraphernalia on various platforms. Could you help illuminate anything on that particular subject?

[Wendy Via]

For platforms like Amazon and eBay, they have put in place rules that prohibit items from being sold if they meet a certain threshold in terms of inspiring hate and violence. The challenge is that it's not always well enforced. I think when we're talking about making rules or creating legislation to combat this, it's the enforcement that is the real challenge.

We see that with the companies themselves. They have these rules. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube—all of them have rules about what can be aired on their platforms, but it's the enforcement. It is unequally enforced. It is inadequately enforced. There is not enough staff. There's not enough cultural and language competency in order for that to happen.

So I think it is the enforcement. That's the teeth we were talking about in the opening remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, a quick look at the clock tells me that if I cut everybody's allotment in half in the second round, we'll finish exactly on time. Let's proceed with that.

I would now invite Ms. Dancho to go ahead with a two-and-a-half-minute round.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Perry, you were talking about disinformation and conspiracy theories of actors online. You mentioned that they're “associated with the right wing” in Canada. Now, I'm a Conservative. I would consider myself on the right wing of the spectrum. I took issue with your characterization of that.

I'm not sure if you misspoke or if you meant to say that the extremist elements are on the right side. I'd just like you to correct the record, if you wish.

[Dr. Barbara Perry]

Well, there are two points there. I think I really was speaking more to the extremist state. I should also stress that conspiracy theories run the gamut from left to right, but there are some that seem to be particularly associated with the far right in the Canadian context.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you for that clarification. I would agree that there seem to be conspiracy theories across the spectrum. We need to pay special attention to that, certainly.

My next question is for you, Mr. Balgord. You mentioned that you have concerns with regard to algorithms and how they drive extremism and what we see or what comes up on our social media platforms. One of the key things that Elon Musk has talked about concerning Twitter is to make the algorithms more public so that we understand why we're seeing what we're seeing. Would you not agree that this is a good idea?

[Evan Balgord]

Yes. That actually is something that I would support.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Great.

You mentioned also the town square platform in general and the bots. Elon Musk has also talked significantly about addressing the bots issue. Do you believe that bots drive polarization as well, and that Elon Musk's idea in this regard is a good idea?

[Evan Balgord]

Yes; bots kind of do two things. First, they can be weaponized by non-state actors to exacerbate social conflict within countries. That, of course, is not something we want foreign state actors doing. The second thing they do, of course, is more like marketing—hijacking, trying to grift and make money.

Neither is good. Of course, we would like bots to be removed from the platform. The social media companies today actually try fairly hard to keep bot accounts off and haven't had a lot of success at it. Improvements there would be welcome.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

You mentioned that you took issue with Elon Musk perhaps suing others—I'm not sure of the context—for perhaps defaming him, or perhaps he accused them of libel. I would assume that those contexts were when people were attacking his company or his reputation personally. Do you see that as different from him protecting free speech on a digital town square? I personally do see that differently.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Please make it a 10-second answer.

[Evan Balgord]

I would just say this. We see his comments in regard to free speech as maybe concerning because his personal opinion on free speech and the one he's putting forward publicly for the platform seem to be at odds with each other.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McKinnon, I will turn to you now for a two-and-a-half-minute round, sir.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll start with you, Ms. Via. A lot of the testimony today has been focused on right-wing extremism. I'm wondering if you can discuss the other areas of extremism that we might be concerned about and that we should be aware of.

[Wendy Via]

Do you mean areas other than far-right extremism?

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Yes. We've been focused a lot on right-wing extremism, but Dr. Perry mentioned that it's right across the spectrum. I'm wondering if there are other general aspects or categories that we should be aware of and that we should be taking note of.

[Wendy Via]

There have certainly been incidents of extremism on the far left, particularly, related to climate or animal protection. However, that is not as much of an issue today as it was, say, in the nineties. The incidents that we see and the violence that we see today are primarily coming from the far-right extremist element. That is why we focus on it; because it is the primary source.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Okay. Thank you very much.

I'd like to extend that same question to Dr. Perry as well. Can you please expand on the nature of extremism and whether there are other categories that we should be aware of and taking note of?

[Dr. Barbara Perry]

My response will be very similar to Wendy's in that the nature and extent of the violence that we see coming from other sectors in the Canadian context, specifically, are dwarfed by what we see from the far right. I gave some examples earlier on of the mass murders that we've seen in Canada and across the globe.

Again, specific to the Canadian context, that's really where the predominant threat is in terms of violence, but also in terms of the visibility and extent of their attempts to recruit and to expand their narratives across the nation.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you. I believe that's my time.