Parliament should penalize companies like Google and Facebook if they fail to identify and control “undesirable or questionable” content on the internet, according to a House of Commons heritage committee report.
The November 2024 report included a recommendation that social media platforms put in place mechanisms to detect content that may be the product of disinformation or foreign interference. The report said the platforms should be required to “promptly identify such content and report it to users” and that a failure to do so “should result in penalties,” as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
Other recommendations included that Ottawa develop an “extensive information and awareness campaign on the dangers of disinformation,” that platforms be required to “collaborate with independent academic research” by providing data, and that the companies ensure their rules, procedures, and algorithms are accessible to all individuals and do not result in “adverse differential treatment of any individual or group.”
The committee’s report was based on testimony from 18 witnesses, which included representatives of Google and Meta, the company that owns Facebook. Journalists, academics, and advocates also testified.
The goal of the committee was to study tech giants’ “current and ongoing use of intimidation and subversion tactics to evade regulation in Canada and across the world.”
The report said some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies,“including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money.” It said this disinformation can create “doubt and confusion,” particularly when involving health information.
“Witnesses described some of the major societal harms arising from unregulated social media platforms relying on algorithms to amplify content, among them disinformation and conspiracy theories,” wrote the report.
Conservative MPs submitted a dissenting report, arguing that the committee’s main report “failed to adequately explore the state of censorship in Canada and the role played by tech giants and the current federal government.”
“Canadians are increasingly being censored by the government and tech giants as to what they can see, hear and say online,” said the dissenting report. “The internet is boundless. Anyone who wants to have a presence on the internet can have one.”
The dissenting report also argued that a government bureaucracy should not regulate what content should be prioritized and what should be demoted.
“Social media is everywhere,” Attorney General Arif Virani testified last March 21 at the Commons justice committee. “It brings unchecked dangers and horrific content. This frankly terrifies me. We need to make the internet safe.”
