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Results: 31 - 45 of 79
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-03-29 11:54
As you may know, there are already criminal provisions under the law in Canada. Obviously, the platform and Facebook and other Internet companies live with that framework.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
I'm assuming that's a yes, and that you also agree that there would be a reason for us to be able to use judicial and financial penalties to hold Facebook to account if it were not taking down hateful content in a timely manner.
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-03-29 11:55
We've indicated that yes, if we aren't seen to be in good faith building the right systems to enforce against our standards, then absolutely we should be subject to some kind of penalty and held to account.
View Anthony Housefather Profile
Lib. (QC)
I understand and appreciate that, Mr. Chan, but your CEO, before Congress, committed not to establishing Spanish-speaking moderators but increasing the number of Spanish-speaking moderators in the United States, so he disclosed that there were Spanish-speaking moderators in the United States.
I don't understand how we cannot know if there are French-speaking moderators in Canada. We're not asking who they are or where they are. I would request that you get back to the committee in writing if you are able to disclose whether there are or are not French-speaking moderators in Canada.
Let me move to another question.
You said that all Facebook policies are published, and I appreciate that. However, you have guidelines that you give to the content moderators that are not published. The Guardian, on March 23, [Technical difficulty—Editor] moderators, and noted that it spelled out differentiations between protections for private and public individuals.
In Quebec, several mayors have said they will not run in the next election because they have received threats on social media.
[Technical difficulty—Editor] that, given that people in Quebec now are not running for re-election because of social media, I'm a bit concerned that the guidelines seem to specify that private individuals cannot be targeted with calls for death on Facebook, but public figures simply cannot be purposely exposed to such calls.
Therefore, it would be interpreted that it is legitimate under Facebook's harassment policies to call for the death of a public figure as long as the user does not tag them in the post. Are these reports about these policies accurate in terms of the guidelines being given to moderators?
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-03-29 12:04
I don't know about those specific guidelines because, again, you'll appreciate, sir, that I haven't seen those specific guidelines.
I can tell you, though, that our posture with respect to public figures and private citizens is consistent with the way the law has evolved in terms of the different thresholds that would pertain to a private citizen versus a public figure. That's just the reality of how the law has evolved and how the courts have interpreted these thresholds for a public figure versus a private citizen.
I would definitely say that in all cases where there is a credible threat to an individual, whether public or private, we obviously work with law enforcement to make sure we get to the bottom of it, and we take it very seriously.
View Marci Ien Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Marci Ien Profile
2021-03-29 12:11
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. You're doing an excellent job today.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here.
Mr. Chan, I want to start with you and focus on hate speech, if I might, for a bit. We have seen what has happened with anti-Asian hate. A lot of it was born on social media and ramped up because of that. It has been reported that per capita there is more anti-Asian hate and there are more incidents thereof in Canada, in fact, than in the United States.
I'm just wondering, with regard to Facebook and how you run things, whether anything has changed. Have you ramped up efforts to curb that kind of hate?
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-03-29 12:12
Our approach is uniform across the system, which is that derogatory language or discriminatory language targeted at specific groups, whether they be Asian or otherwise, is a violation of our community standards. We would enforce the same way across the system.
From my own personal experience working at Facebook, I can't say we have seen an uptick on enforcement. Certainly nothing has been escalated to my desk or to my screen, but I obviously read with concern the same things you're reading in the news about the challenge that Asian-Canadians are facing.
View Marci Ien Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Marci Ien Profile
2021-03-29 12:13
For example, if something were to be found, Mr. Chan, a post on Facebook that contained hate, what happens? Can you walk us through that?
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-03-29 12:13
There are two ways of enforcing our systems, to be honest. One is the automated system, as I think one of your colleagues mentioned, which uses artificial intelligence. Some of the technology was developed in Canada: machine learning to go and find all these things.
In fact, I have some statistics here. In terms of hate speech, in the last quarter of 2020, our automated systems found over 97% of hate speech directed at groups automatically, before any human had seen them or reported them. That's where we are. Now, 97% is not 100%, so we still have a ways to go, but we're getting better every day. That's our posture. That's the way we do it right now.
The other piece, though, is that because speech is important from a contextual standpoint, we have to be careful on some of the grey zones for speech that, in fact, it is an attack on the community and not something else, for example, spreading awareness about Asian racism. We need humans as well, so part of that 35,000-person team that I referred to consists of people who are going to be looking at the context and saying that this image was shared, this video was shared, or this text was shared, but is the context of this to attack Asians, or is this to raise awareness about discrimination and racism? That context matters in terms of whether or not we would enforce and take it down.
It is really a parallel process that meets when we need to get more context. We have automated systems that go and find things automatically. We're constantly improving, but we're at about 97% of proactive identification and we need humans to verify some of the more challenging ones, where the speech is grey and we have to be sure of the context. Then, in the most complicated cases, they get escalated to people like me and Rachel, where we will look at specific pieces of content emanating from Canada, consult with experts and think through whether or not we're going to be drawing the line in the right place.
View Martin Champoux Profile
BQ (QC)
View Martin Champoux Profile
2021-03-29 12:45
Thank you, I find this a very interesting set of questions from my colleague Mr. Housefather.
In fact, it is very interesting to hear you, Mr. Chan, explain how Canadian public finances should be managed with respect to multinationals, which generate billions of dollars on Canadian soil and are headquartered abroad. We will get there, Mr. Chan. We will find a way to make companies like Facebook contribute fairly to the system from which they still benefit quite a bit.
As you know, we are in the process of finalizing the study of Bill C-10. Many of the recommendations aim to bring social media under the regulation of the Canadian Broadcasting Act, which is not currently the case. Obviously, I expect there will be opposition from social media.
If that were to be the case and if social media like Facebook were to become subject to regulation under the Canadian Broadcasting Act, how would you adjust your responses to situations like the one regarding events in Christchurch, which we were talking about at the beginning of the meeting? Would you adjust your responses so that the 17 minutes of horror that was witnessed was no longer accessible?
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-03-29 12:46
Sir, if I understand the question correctly, [Technical difficulty—Editor] talking about, to be honest, which is that we're talking about user-generated content. The frameworks will be different. A framework about what people can and cannot say is different from the framework that I believe is currently before the committee.
View Martin Champoux Profile
BQ (QC)
View Martin Champoux Profile
2021-03-29 12:47
Unfortunately, I only have two minutes and 30 seconds in this round of questions.
According to Professor Jean-Hugues Roy, whom you were talking about earlier yourself, Facebook's algorithm is quite reliable, and advanced enough that the broadcast could easily have been stopped in seconds.
This may be a bit of a stretch, but doesn't it become an editorial choice, on Facebook's part, to allow slightly offensive images to be broadcast in contexts where no regulations are in place?
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-03-29 12:47
No, absolutely not.
Unfortunately, Professor Roy is once again misinformed; this is not the case.
View Kamal Khera Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Minister, for being here.
I echo what John said earlier. I feel like you're part of this committee because I see you here so often. It's good to see you. Thanks again for being here.
Minister, we know this pandemic has shone a light on the vulnerabilities that exist in our communities, especially visible minorities, whether they are Black Canadians, South Asian Canadians, Muslim Canadians or Asian Canadian populations. We know that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian racism has been on the rise and has only escalated, even though we know it existed before that. StatsCan reported last summer that visible minorities experienced an increase in harassment or attacks based on their race, ethnicity or skin colour, which had tripled compared with the rest of the population since the COVID-19 pandemic started, with the largest increase among Chinese and Korean Canadian populations.
All that, Minister, coupled with the recent events in the U.S., is very real and very concerning. Can you perhaps talk a bit about the work that you're undertaking to fight violence fuelled by hate, racism and discrimination in all its forms?
View Bill Blair Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you so much, Ms. Khera.
This is actually a very important question, not just for the public safety portfolio but for all Canadians. What we have seen is a very disturbing and concerning rise in racism, intolerance and hatred, not just in our society but right around the world.
Many of these issues have been aggravated by the pandemic but they don't begin there, so our response has to be very comprehensive. I can tell you that in response to the growing concern across Canada with the very significant and serious increase in incidents of hatred directed towards Asian Canadians—and by the way, I spoke to the chief of police in Vancouver in response to these events last week—I reached out to police leadership right across the country, in every part of the country. I engaged them in a conversation about our collective response to these acts of hatred. The chief in Vancouver tells me they've seen a 770% increase in hate crimes directed towards Asian Canadians. This is completely unacceptable.
I also reached out and spoke today to the executive of the CACP and raised the issue, once again, of our collective response. We spoke, for example, about the tools and resources they need to deal with online hate. I advised them that our government is working on bringing forward legislation for the removal of online harms, including online hate, for the preservation of that evidence and for ensuring that the police and law enforcement have access to the evidence and the tools they need to deal more effectively.
We talked about how certain other measures, including the red flag laws that are introduced in Bill C-21, can be used to deal more effectively with those who are online advocating violence against women and religious or ethnic minorities in this country. They should not have access to firearms. They represent an unacceptable risk. We talked about those tools as well.
I can tell you that, in all of my agencies, this is our most important discussion. We acknowledge that ideologically motivated violent extremism, which includes all of the hatred, biases and intolerances that concern all Canadians—or should concern all Canadians—is at the forefront of this because it represents the greatest threat to the domestic security of all Canadians.
Ms. Khera, there is no place for racism or intolerance anywhere in our society. Certainly, I want to assure you that all of our agencies and departments understand that they have a responsibility to take action. We're looking at all the tools and resources they need to ensure we are able to do that.
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