Google, Facebook tell government they take ‘fake news’ seriously

Internet executives testified about fake news and ad dollars in front of a parliamentary committee.

Thestar.com
Feb. 15, 2017
By Alex Ballingall

Executives from Google and Facebook told a parliamentary committee Tuesday they’re concerned about “fake news” online, but pushed back at the suggestion their companies should be liable for the information that flows through their websites.

The Internet executives were testifying at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for the second time after parliamentarians asked them to return to field questions on misrepresentative or demonstrably false “news” that has fuelled concern in recent months. They were also asked about a report, published last month by the Public Policy Forum in Ottawa, that outlined how the Internet behemoths are gobbling digital ad dollars while many traditional Canadian media organizations, especially in smaller markets, struggle to stay afloat.

“We take our responsibility very seriously. That’s precisely why we’ve spent so much energy in the past three months to build out efforts to address fake news,” said Kevin Chan, head of public policy for Facebook Canada.

Jason Kee, Google Canada’s counsel for public policy and government relations, echoed Chan and outlined measures his company takes to weed out what he called “misrepresentative content.”

Asked whether online news aggregators and publishers should be liable for slanderous or misleading content, Kee added: “If online platforms are liable for the content of their users, they will actually not be able to function. … If we have to pre-approve content online that means the Internet comes to a screeching halt.”

For several months, the committee has been studying the changing media landscape. Tuesday’s discussion highlighted the novel and seemingly paradoxical position of companies like Google and Facebook. On one hand, the executives said they are committed to ensuring freedom of expression online; they want to avoid becoming the Internet’s “arbiters of truth,” as Kee put it.

But they also acknowledged the responsibility to ensure their platforms don’t facilitate flagrantly erroneous information and websites posing as legitimate news outlets.

“This is a challenging issue,” Kee said. “We don’t have all the answers.”

“We take our responsibility very seriously. That’s precisely why we’ve spent so much energy in the past three months to build out efforts to address fake news,” said Kevin Chan, head of public policy for Facebook Canada.

Last month’s report from the Public Policy Forum sounded the alarm on the decaying Canadian media industry and also singled out Facebook and Google. The report noted that the giant U.S. companies now dominate much of the flow of information online, while accusing them of avoiding the responsibilities of a traditional publisher.

The report also outlined how the Internet goliaths rake in two out of every three dollars spent on digital ads in this country, while just 11.5 per cent goes to Canadian-based publishers. When digital ad revenues in the U.S. jumped $2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2016, all but $300 million of that new money went to Google and Facebook, the report said.

Asked about profits from Canadian advertising, Chan and Kee defended their companies by saying Canadian businesses benefit from their services. Kee added that Google actually directs millions of people to other websites via its search engine, and said such services might not be available from another company in Canada.

Both Facebook and Google are also developing ways to address fake news. Chan, for instance, said Facebook is improving how users can report posts that are obvious hoaxes. The company is also introducing ways to label news items as “disputed” and make such posts appear less prominently in people’s feeds. Google’s Kee said his company is also working on better labelling.

Both companies are also aiming to find ways to improve the public’s media literacy so that people can more ably discern for themselves what is reliable and what is fake.

“Our purpose is to actually try to help our users find the most relevant information that’s available,” Kee said.