Fake news worries increasing ahead of 2019 election: PPF CEO

OTTAWA — Policy makers in Canada have become more concerned about the problem of fake news on the internet in recent months, according to Edward Greenspon, president and CEO of the Public Policy Forum (PPF), who also said there is very little information about the extent of the problem in Canada. “I think just the very fact that we’re speaking up here is consistent with a bit of a shift in opinion that’s been going on over the last three to nine months and is just beginning to take hold in certain parts of the policy-making community,” he said during a panel discussion on the issue at the International Institute of Communications (IIC) conference Wednesday. “There is a growing concern and the growing concern is particularly focused on the election and certain attacks we’ve seen on social cohesion,” Greenspon said. The issue of fake news influencing election outcomes has been gathering increasing attention following the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency a year ago. Greenspon noted that “policy makers are starting to talk about this because they’re alarmed. They’re alarmed that the 2019 election might be under attack,” either by those looking to make money or for ideological, partisan or geopolitical reasons. “Up to now, they’ve only been concerned about cybersecurity in elections. Now they’re concerned about beyond that,” Greenspon added. Marina Pavlovic, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society, noted that the government often makes use of Facebook Inc.’s social platform, giving the example of Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly using the platform for her Creative Canada announcement. “You mentioned that policy makers are paying attention. But are they really, if the federal government makes important announcements only using Facebook Live… which requires the public to open an account and sign a fairly complex and not necessarily user-friendly agreement and share their data?” she asked. “Is there really political will to regulate them in the public interest or is the will to then … go to self-regulation, where Facebook’s Canadian Election Integrity Initiative appears to be doing something, but things are really not being done?” Pavlovic asked in reference to a plan released last month. That initiative involves a digital news literacy effort and a training program and crisis line for Canadian political parties and politicians. The issue of fake news on social media platforms came up before a Parliamentary committee earlier this year. Facebook has since unveiled a new feature to help fight the phenomenon. Greenspon noted that there is currently very little information about the extent of the problem in Canada. “There’s a tremendous amount of information that’s come out in the United States and particularly in Britain around the Brexit campaign as well about what was going on. In Canada, we assume very little’s going on. We actually have no idea what’s happening in the ecosystem. There’s very, very little research available in Canada,” he said. Greenspon added that its important for regulators, like Elections Canada, to know what’s going on in real time. “Disclosures about advertising that may be bad or warped in some way…that you learn three months after an election campaign isn’t going to be very helpful.” Moderator John Gregory, former general counsel for the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General, asked whether the phenomenon of fake news was helping to change old attitudes about online regulation during his presentation of a paper by Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP partner Sheldon Burshtein. He pointed out that a panelist a day earlier made the point that a decade or so ago, “people thought you couldn’t regulate the internet,” either because it was deemed too difficult or too much of an infringement on free speech or technological innovation. “Is that still the case?” Gregory asked. “Or is, frankly, the universe of online defamation and online fake news changing the popular opinions, changing the political opinions, changing the legal opinions as to how manageable this is and how important it is to give it a try?” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca editing by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca

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Fake news worries increasing ahead of 2019 election: PPF CEO

Broadcast | November 15, 2017

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