Status of Women Committee on Dec. 5th, 2016

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

On the issue of violence and cyber-bullying online, it seems to me that it would be tough, I think, for any corporate citizen in Canada not to get onside there, so I don't think the kinds of ways in which we would address that are necessarily going to constrain the apparatus of data collection that private corporations require to do business in this day and age. By no means would I want to see any kind of constraint in that regard. I think it's not realistic in this contemporary era.

But I think the issue is well beyond just the “where” and the “how” of data being collected, because we're not actually going to roll that back. It is about the consequences in that networked, social, communicative environment that people, and young people in particular, are so engaged in. I think there's enough difference there between the objectives of a corporation versus that level of communication such that we should be able to find a path on which we can agree., I would think.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

On these social spaces that you're talking about, you spent a bit of time in your testimony in talking about the massive distances between the simplicity of the user interface and the algorithm on the back end. If we're able to pull the mask off the user interface and everything is laid bare, I'm at a complete loss as to what we would do with that new information. If we see the mechanics behind the machine, what as a federal government could we actually do with that information to help ensure that the social space is safe for young women and girls?

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

I think that opening up that mysterious black box that runs those things can only be done through reverse engineering, by studying how they work, because those companies that have those proprietary platforms of algorithms are not going to divulge them, for trade secret reasons and for competition reasons. I wouldn't think that we could actually ask them to do that, but what we can do is try to publicize what is that step between clicking that heart button and what that action is actually doing. What does that do in principle on Twitter to drive up particular kinds of stories? What kinds of choices do people make, and how do we connect their choice to click on one of those reaction buttons on Facebook and the material consequence of the action?

To me, that's where this sort of cloud gets lifted: in exposing what feels like a very intangible click to the fact that it has a material consequence, particularly in cyber-bullying cases, where there's a real effect for young women who are targeted in those practices online.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Is it really about ensuring that the product's end user is making an informed decision when they click that “like” button or whatever it might be?

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

In my view, yes.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Okay. Thanks very much.

We heard from the previous panel about the concept of brigading and in particular about the ability of groups with certain nefarious agendas that are able to commandeer a platform and take it over. To your knowledge, is there any sort of technical product or strategy that exists to prevent that kind of taking over of an otherwise useful social platform?

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

Not really. There's a huge effort going on right now at Google and elsewhere to try to pre-empt that kind of activity. Google has actually done a pretty good job of tweaking their algorithm to stay one step ahead of what is essentially, instead of marketing-based search engine optimization, more malicious search-engine optimization by hackers and by groups who would choose to manipulate them in that way.

I actually think that this will be solvable over time as machine learning becomes more powerful and as they become better at tracking those kinds of nefarious methods. That one, I think, is more likely to be solved—not soon enough, perhaps—to block this kind of influence.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Let me jump in there. I only have about 30 seconds left. A while ago, we were talking about education. Should we be targeting grade school right through to the senior population and the corporate community as well? Are there other target groups we might be missing for an education initiative?

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

Digital literacy education can never hurt. It's particularly crucial among young people.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much. That's very interesting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll go to Ms. Vecchio for five minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you.

You mentioned hackers, or the discussion of hackers came up here. I'm very simple when it comes to using the computer; I do not understand the scientific background of it. We were talking about the hackers. How is it that they can also work with these bread crumbs that we were talking about when you were talking about the algorithms? What is it that they can do that is going to send us to some of these malicious sites?

[Corinne Charette]

Hackers have a variety of tools. The most basic one used is the concept of phishing. Everybody here probably routinely gets a number of phishing emails. Now they're starting to do text-message phishing that says “click on this link”, and as soon as you click, that's it: your device has just been downloaded with an unwelcome visitor that resides there, often gathering information about your daily online activities without your knowing, until such time as that information is of value, for whatever purpose.

Phishing and the ability to infect devices with malware is very prevalent, and hackers are really key at wanting to do that to capture personal information as well as information such as your bank account number, your password, and so on, so that they can log in as you from another place and time and transfer all of your funds to some other destination.

Phishing is number one, but you might have heard a couple of weeks ago about quite a successful denial-of-service attack generated by the Internet of things in things as basic as your home thermostat. All of these devices that connect to the Internet come with often pre-set standard passwords. The user may not always know what the standard password is or even know how to change the standard password, but hackers will know how to do it, so they'll be able to penetrate your home networks and lurk until such time as they need to do what they'd like to do.

Unfortunately, given the complexity of technology in our homes and businesses.... At least in our businesses we have LAN administrators and technologists who are looking out for us, but at home we're all obliged to become at least basic technology defenders in some way.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Sheila asked earlier whether there was anything you saw that was good. Are there examples of responsible leadership by service providers or of any platforms being used? You mentioned Google. What is it that they're doing specifically that is going to help us when it comes to our children and the cyber-bullying and the various things that we see going on today?

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

Google has the good and the bad at times, right, in terms of the leadership they show. There have been some things this year that have pushed companies like Twitter to be more proactive in combatting hate speech.

When you think about this, I think we're in a funny situation here, because these are American companies whose servers reside in the U.S. and have the first amendment governing things like aggressive hate propaganda and hate speech. They don't have the same visceral reaction we do. They simply don't. Even at the corporate level, I think, it is hard to galvanize action, but we do see them taking action when there's a lot of publicity. It may take an extreme event to push that over the top, such as the targeting of the actor Leslie Jones with racist, sexist, and misogynist hate speech on Twitter.

I think some of those companies are getting the message. In particular, a company like Twitter has to get its act in order because, for all their billions, they are actually struggling to broaden their base and their platform. They are motivated. It is capitalism. It is a private sector company, so I think we can vote with our thumbs. We can push them—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

That's perfect.

The one thing we've talked about also is the legislation and what it is that our government can do. A lot of times when we talk about the government, we talk about legislation and regulations, but in cases like this, I just don't see legislation working, because this is so much greater than just what the government can do. What are some of the techniques? Or what can we do as Canadian citizens?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's your time.

I'll go to Ms. Damoff for five minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks to both of you for your testimony and for shedding light on this.

One of the things that has come up, from both our previous witnesses and from you, is that the best thing we can do is digital literacy and education. Ms. Malcolmson was asking earlier about funding. Status of Women has very little funding to fund the programs that it has, and it seems to me that it would fall within more departments than just Status of Women.

I have a two-part question. One, where is the funding coming from? If this is a multi-billion dollar industry with big data, should it be falling only on government to be funding this education, or should it also be falling to the industry to provide some funding to groups like MediaSmarts for them to provide their programming?

[Corinne Charette]

Funding is always a big issue: who should be the funder? Certainly, education is a provincial jurisdiction, but the federal government can be a champion in helping to establish the interest level in this kind of debate and in establishing the need to raise digital literacy. Public Safety Canada works hard on keeping “cyber safe”. There's a variety of different programs across government departments federally that contribute to that and to consumer protection and so on.

Fundamentally, if we are going to get things into the curriculum, it's certainly a private sector issue, but it's also for the non-profit sector. I think corporations can do their part. Right now, for instance, we're seeing a huge amount of interest in teaching women how to code and getting women into STEM fields, which I think is fantastic, because we are seeing a declining enrolment of women in STEM education. Some of these programs are going to young girls in grade school and then right through to high school and university.

I think the non-profit sector is able to do a whole lot with really limited resources. I also think that the provinces are obviously the keys in education curriculum, but the federal government can be a champion by pointing out the national nature of this need and making sure that all the players across Canada do their part in helping to make a dent in this issue.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

One of our witnesses talked about the need for more women to be involved in the coding and creating the algorithms. Obviously, we can't regulate that, but if there were more women developing the algorithms, I'm wondering if that would help in terms of harassment, and in particular harassment on social media.

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

I think it does make a difference. I came from the private sector in the software industry back into academia, and I think it absolutely makes a difference. We can't be what we can't see. If we go into those software development places and participate fully in designing and developing software, why wouldn't it make a difference? Parity makes a difference everywhere in culture when we have women contributing in all kinds of ways. I think it brings a level of consciousness to the table that is based particularly on women's experience.

If you follow things like Hollaback!, you know that young women are being harassed in considerable numbers. These things are being tracked, thanks as well to big data and mapping and things. If you think about that, I think it will make a difference to bring women into that experience at that early stage of developing, just in the sense of consciousness.

If you Google “CEO” in the images on the Google search function, what do you get back? You get a sea of white male faces, and we know that our world is more diverse than that. That's the training data that was used to train that algorithm: Google Images.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I only have about 30 seconds. In terms of specific actions that you could see the federal government taking, if there were one, what would it be?

[Dr. Sandra Robinson]

I would invite the Microsofts, Googles, and Twitters of the world to help us combat cyber-bullying, because they have the power and the funds to do so.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Do you have anything to add, Ms. Charette?

[Corinne Charette]

I would agree. I think the corporations we deal with are doing their best to be good corporate citizens, and they work hard to meet the government whenever they can on issues of importance. I think that perhaps this is something that we need to leverage more and put an emphasis on in going forward.