Information & Ethics committee  Yes. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I think it's important to recognize different types of interference. One can imagine having a platform where a state actor has direct access—like VKontakte, which ran from Russia and was, in fact, banned in Ukraine due to this threat that was determined, that it was actually run by the state—versus the risk associated with the general data misuse practices, whether by platforms or by third parties.

Information & Ethics committee  Usually we're not talking about an individual like me or a colleague being targeted. It is in fact the sympathetic groups that state actors would be targeting. What happens is that they would look at political partisan views that may be aligned with their objectives. For example, when we're talking about pro-Kremlin content, that usually resonates very well with far right Conservative groups, especially in the U.S.

Information & Ethics committee  The Social Media Lab produces a report, every two years, entitled “The State of Social Media in Canada”, and we ask Canadians what platforms they use. Certainly most of the top nine platforms would be North American and U.S.-based, except TikTok is the fastest-growing platform. Around one-third of Canadians use it.

Information & Ethics committee  In fact, we see that happening across the board. The case I mentioned earlier that was found by Meta was quite a sophisticated information operation run through multiple platforms, not just a single platform. In fact, that content included an element whereby fake websites were created, and of course, with generative AI it is quite easy to create something like that.

Information & Ethics committee  I agree that we need to look at this holistically, including not just one, single platform, unless your future witnesses clearly indicate or provide evidence as to why that particular platform is a special case.

Information & Ethics committee  I think it may put emphasis on just one platform, making it sound as though other platforms are safe when, in fact, they are engaged in similar data-harvesting practices and similar data misuse, or may be used by state actors. Definitely expanding the scope and looking at the strategies used for information operation would be a much more effective angle, unless—

Information & Ethics committee  It's been happening, and some of the measures put in place are sometimes counterintuitive or counterproductive—even the simple example of going to a website and having it ask you if you accept cookies. Well, what is my choice if I want to visit that website? There is also the example I mentioned earlier about installing the TikTok app without having an account; somebody's trying to track....

Information & Ethics committee  When you say “digital trust rating”, are you referring to that being assigned to people—users—or the platforms themselves?

Information & Ethics committee  That goes directly to my point about expanding their trust and safety departments, not reducing. Essentially, that's the branch of the large major social media companies that actually oversees the content moderation, so that harmful content, problematic content, will not get the audience it's seeking.

Information & Ethics committee  We can clearly see confusion in the future between what's authentic and what is not. Right now, we're not at that stage. In fact, in a number of studies that I've seen, when they ask human participants whether or not they recognize some of the deepfakes and other artificial intelligence-created artifacts, the humans still can recognize these.

Information & Ethics committee  That is exactly right. It's about the trust between the content and the particular topics, and sometimes it's just enough to create confusion. If you have a state actor that may not be able to convince us here in Canada of certain narratives, it's maybe just enough to cause some confusion.

Information & Ethics committee  Can you expand and try to give me a bit of context?

Information & Ethics committee  Any unregulated use of AI, perhaps, can be misused in the future. I think right now that we are in this Wild West territory, where a lot of wrong steps will be made, companies will try to innovate, and bad actors will misuse the technology. I am glad that this committee and maybe other committees as well are trying to look into this issue.

Information & Ethics committee  My point about not putting all the responsibility on the individuals comes from several directions. First of all, even if individuals know how to change privacy settings, many platforms will have access to their private messages. While they feel they're protected, they're actually not.

Information & Ethics committee  The use varies widely. They are private companies making money; most of their revenue is driven by ads, clearly, and most of the data harvesting is happening for that purpose. How do they deliver eyeballs to companies and individuals who are willing to pay for those eyeballs? A lot of this will be about collecting your interests—what you like and what you don't like—so that when the time comes, they will show you a particular ad that is attractive, and you will be a ready buyer for that.