Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Zimmer. I want to be clear. I'm not familiar with the procedures of Canadian Parliament and what requires appearance. I respect that, but I do want to get on record that they are committed to working with government, as well as being responsible toward these issues.

Information & Ethics committee  Additionally, just to address another question that I think is permeating, about how we go about removing content and identifying it, we do remove content for a number of various abuse types. It's not just violence. In that specific case, where we're talking about misinformation, the appearance of some of these tropes that appeared in Sri Lanka and other countries, we removed that on the cause that it would lead to violence.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. We are also investigating and doing research on this policy, to make sure we are in the right place. Currently, we would identify it as being fake and then inform our users, but we constantly—

Information & Ethics committee  We constantly iterate our policies, and we may update those policies in the future, as they evolve. We are working with research agencies and people on the ground to understand how these videos could manifest. As I mentioned before, if these videos, or any type of misinformation, led to real world harm—or off-line harm, I should say—we would remove that content.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sorry, the laughter.... I didn't hear the name?

Information & Ethics committee  If it was the same video, inserting Mr. Zuckerberg for Speaker Pelosi, it would get the same treatment.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Tong, I reject the premise. I reject that wholeheartedly. If we know that something is hate speech, if we know that it is causing violence, we actually move more swiftly. We had a discussion earlier about misinformation. If we know that misinformation is actually leading to physical harm and violence, we work with trusted partners on the ground, civil society and others, to flag that for us—law enforcement even—and then we will actually remove that content.

Information & Ethics committee  When we're made aware of that content, we do remove it. If it is not reported or if we have not proactively identified it, then we would not remove it, because honestly we would not know that it exists. I want to say that our hearts go out to those people in Sri Lanka and everywhere that you've mentioned here in your handout.

Information & Ethics committee  I apologize.

Information & Ethics committee  That question is not hard, Mr. Tong. The question would be one of identifying the content. If we are not made aware that the content exists, either through a user report or our own proactive measures, then we would not know that this content is on the platform.

Information & Ethics committee  Artificial intelligence is a great lever to help us identify this. It is not perfect. It is not salient where it will get 100% of the activity right, just as humans we will not get 100% of the activity right. I would have to check on this video specifically, but if we were made aware of this video, we would remove it.

Information & Ethics committee  Sir, I would have to see how the content was shared. The way that you have—

Information & Ethics committee  I'm trying to explain that I don't know that premise. I'd have to check to make sure that we were actually aware. I do not believe that we were aware of that video at the time.

Information & Ethics committee  It is hate speech.

Information & Ethics committee  That would be a breach of our policies. That is correct, sir.