THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, October 5, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met with videoconference this day at 6:45 p.m. [ET] to study the subject matter of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
Senator Leo Housakos (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: I am Leo Housakos, a senator from Quebec and the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications.
[English]
I would like to start on my left side by having my colleagues briefly introduce themselves.
Senator Simons: I’m Senator Paula Simons from Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I am Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec.
Senator Cormier: I am Senator René Cormier from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Klyne: Marty Klyne, senator from Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo from British Columbia.
[Translation]
Senator Dawson: I am Dennis Dawson from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Sorensen: Karen Sorensen, Alberta, Treaty 7 territory.
[Translation]
Senator Clement: I am Bernadette Clement from Ontario.
[English]
Senator LaBoucane-Benson: Patti LaBoucane-Benson, Treaty 6 territory, Alberta.
Senator Manning: Fabian Manning, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas, Alberta.
The Chair: We are meeting to continue our examination of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
We have our witnesses here today. Nicolas Bouchard of Believe Canada was supposed to be with us today, as you see in your agenda, but he has gone AWOL. He had expressed an interest in being before the committee and had confirmed, but the clerk says he has not been reachable the last couple of days.
[Translation]
Joining us today by video conference are Patrick Aldous, Senior Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Nettwerk Music Group Inc., as well as Clotilde Heibing, Chief Executive Officer, Natalie Bernardin, Vice President, and Audrey Mayrand, Attorney, all from Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale.
The witnesses will have five minutes for opening remarks, and then we will move into questions and answers.
Up first will be Patrick Aldous. Go ahead, Mr. Aldous. You have five minutes.
[English]
Patrick Aldous, Senior Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs, Nettwerk Music Group Inc.: Thank you, Senator Housakos and honourable committee members.
While Nettwerk Music Group appreciates the government’s well-intentioned efforts to support the Canadian music economy through Bill C-11, we believe the legislation may likely have the opposite effect for the reasons I will explain today.
CanCon has little relevance to the modern music discovery. Streaming has shifted music discovery away from terrestrial radio and other traditional media toward what has been referred to as “online scenes.” Understanding these new scenes and music’s role within them can help open a pathway to a global audience for an artist. These scenes are digital in nature and are not bound by geography.
Moving away from traditional music marketing and toward an online scene-based model has had a significant positive impact on Nettwerk’s Canadian artists and, by extension, our business. Canadian artists on our active roster earn on average approximately 90% of their streaming revenue outside of Canada’s borders. A CanCon-style regulatory approach to digital streaming would be inconsistent with the borderless career aspirations of our Canadian artists. At best, such regulation would be completely irrelevant to Nettwerk’s music discovery strategy. At worst, it could significantly damage it.
A CanCon-style regulation of streaming service could seriously damage the exportability of Canadian artists. Our research has identified that when an artist becomes successful solely or primarily within a geographically defined music market, it implies that artist is only meaningful to listeners within that geographic region. That can dramatically restrict the artist’s ability to reach a global audience, making it extremely difficult for that artist to ever break out of that market.
Imposing a CanCon-style regulatory regime on music streaming services would exponentially amplify this effect. To avoid this, Canadian artists would be incentivized to sign to record labels based in larger music markets such as the U.S. and would be disincentivized to sign to Canadian record labels.
We live in a flat digital world that works to the great benefit of Canadian artists. Putting up a wall of regulation in this flat world will only serve to lock Canadian artists in.
The knock-on effect: We share the concerns expressed in Spotify’s testimony before this committee that other governments around the world may follow Canada’s lead with respect to regulation of streaming services. We worry that this will result in protectionist digital music markets around the world, which could ultimately result in fracturing the operations of the digital music service providers along national lines. That could be very damaging to any global-facing business model, and significantly reduce the ability of any Canadian company to export its artists and develop their careers.
The user-generated content issue: Nettwerk has been able to leverage so-called virtual moments of user-generated content, or UGC, on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok into significant accelerants of international success for Canadian artists. It is the fan-driven, unregulated nature of this type of direct engagement that makes it so effective. Regulation of user-generated content would be highly detrimental to this phenomenon.
Bill C-11 inserts unnecessary regulation into private commercial relationships. Nettwerk negotiated its first agreement with Spotify in 2009 and is currently one of the few independent record labels globally that has direct distribution relationships with each of Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. By inserting a regulatory regime into those carefully negotiated and long-fostered private relationships, Bill C-11 would effectively make the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, a party to our private commercial agreements.
The uninfluenced data we receive from the streaming partners is essential for us to better understand the ever-evolving factors that influence music discovery and their platforms. Imposing a regulatory regime on those services would compromise that data and impede our ability to grow our Canadian artists globally.
In conclusion, we believe the success of Canadian artists in the streaming economy should be fostered and developed using the borderless tools that the streaming services already provide. We believe the attempts to regulate the streaming economy would close doors of opportunity to Canadian artists, which are currently open, and, ultimately, decrease the number of Canadian artists who are able to have sustainable careers around the world. As such, we would like to support the recommendation made to this committee by the Digital Media Association that the committee should add a provision to Bill C-11 that prevents the CRTC from interfering with algorithmic decision making.
In addition, we would like to support the recommendations made by Spotify that the CRTC should be given specific criteria it must consider before regulating music streaming services.
The rules should ensure that Canadian consumers get options while retaining control of their listening experience. The rules defining what qualifies as Canadian content should be updated, and related obligations should reflect the digital audio streaming model.
We also support YouTube’s position on proposed section 4.2 with respect to user-generated content.
In closing, we at Nettwerk believe that an effective Canadian music discovery policy requires a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down one. We support the testimony of the Canadian Independent Music Association in this regard.
The best way to ensure Canadian artists are discovered on a streaming service in Canada and around the world is by having excellent competitive, well-financed Canadian-controlled music companies investing in developing, marketing, promoting, distributing and exporting excellent Canadian music by outstanding Canadian artists.
I thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
[Translation]
Clotilde Heibing, Chief Executive Officer, Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale: Good evening, honourable senators. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts. My name is Clotilde Heibing, and I am the Chief Executive Officer of Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale, or ANIM for short. Joining me are Natalie Bernardin, Business Owner and Vice President, and Audrey Mayrand, Lawyer.
ANIM supports industry professionals who work in francophone minority communities. Ours is the only organization representing members across the Canadian music industry who work in francophone minority communities. We have 62 members, made up of associations and businesses. ANIM’s mission is to help build a sustainable industry. ANIM believes in a strong and integrated industry nationwide, and is pugnacious in its efforts to ensure that the francophone community has a seat at the national arts and culture table.
We are familiar with the positions our strategic partners have expressed to the committee. Specifically, I am referring to the FCCF, the CDCE — to which ANIM belongs — the APFC and ADISQ, with which we work closely.
We strongly support their recommendations. Rest assured that what they are calling for is what we are calling for. Like them, we find it disappointing that, during periods of legislative reform, we have to fight to keep what we have, rather than fight for advancement.
Natalie Bernardin, Vice President, Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale: Today, we would like to draw your attention to one specific aspect of Bill C-11. I am talking about the recommendation the CRTC made in June to remove the requirement set out in new section 5.2: the consultation of linguistic minority communities. While it may not seem like the most compelling provision of Bill C-11, make no mistake — it is vital.
Our job is to show you how committed we are to official language minority communities, OLMCs, and this provision is of the utmost importance to the OLMCs that ANIM represents.
All too often, OLMCs are not consulted adequately — or not consulted at all — when federal institutions like the CRTC make decisions. The impact on those communities is negative, disastrous even.
ANIM has been waging a bureaucratic and legal battle for nearly a decade now, and that battle alone demonstrates precisely why the committee must strongly reject the CRTC’s call for the removal of the consultation requirement.
In its case against the CRTC, ANIM argues that the CRTC’s lack of communication and consultation lead to decisions that caused significant harm. Between 2013 and 2019, the music industry professionals in our minority communities were denied the ability to benefit from over $2.3 million in funding.
New section 5.2 proposed in Bill C-11 is meant to address that very problem, so that what happened to ANIM does not happen again.
ANIM provided the committee with a detailed brief describing the court case, the impact of the CRTC’s decision on the francophone industry and the importance of the consultation provision.
We would be glad to answer any questions you have on that.
Ms. Heibing: What the CRTC is recommending is even more problematic because of the clear power imbalance between the two sides. Would you believe that ANIM has just two full-time employees? To prepare for this appearance, we had less than two weeks. During that time, ANIM provided essential support to 11 new businesses, participated in two national events in Winnipeg and Calgary, took part in the trial judgment in our case against the CRTC, organized our annual general assembly, welcomed two new members and lost our accountant.
We are here this evening to make sure you do not get the wrong impression. If all you hear from are large organizations and businesses, you will assume that all of us have the tools to fight. We do not. We need you to perform your traditional role, and stand up for the rights and interests of minority communities by rejecting the CRTC’s recommendation that the consultation provision be repealed. The conversation we are starting with you today centres on the inequitable relationship between the CRTC and the music industry. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Simons: Mr. Aldous, we’ve talked a lot in this hearing about the way digital disruption has affected television. I don’t think we’ve talked nearly enough about how much the entire traditional model of music sales was totally blown apart by digital disruption.
When you’re talking about your artists getting so much of their money from streaming, I think that’s a very important thing for people to differentiate.
One of the things that the government has said to us is that they need to have some way to scope in the giant record labels that use YouTube as an alternative or as a way of competing with Spotify and Apple and use YouTube as a music streaming service. They talk about companies like Sony and Warner Brothers. I wanted to know where Nettwerk would fit into that paradigm. Do you stream in that way on YouTube, or are your deals exclusively with the more commercial streaming services?
Mr. Aldous: Thank you for your question. We consider YouTube a valuable partner as well. Our direct negotiated deals are with Spotify, Amazon and Apple, but YouTube is a valued partner in our business strategy as well. All of our music is available on YouTube. We find it’s an excellent way for fan engagement to be achieved.
Senator Simons: What of the government’s argument that it needs to have 4.2(2) in order to capture the big record labels on YouTube so that they are not providing unfair competition to Spotify and the like?
Mr. Aldous: Sorry, could you repeat your question? It cut off there.
Senator Simons: The government has repeatedly told us that they need section 4.2(2), which is the exemption to the exemption, in order to scope in YouTube when YouTube is a platform that is used by giant record labels like Sony and Warner Brothers to offer a streaming service. They have said to us, “If we don’t have an exemption, we’re letting these giant record labels basically get a free pass.” I’m just wondering where Nettwerk would fit into that if in your discussions with the government you have been led to understand that you fall into that same basket. Or are companies like Sony and Warner Brothers so much larger than yours that you fit into a sort of middle tier?
Mr. Aldous: We have nowhere near the market share of those large companies, but it’s my understanding that we would be captured within that particular provision. That distinction wouldn’t be made between the size of the company, but that it’s more the revenue-generating nature of the commercial enterprise that would lead to the capture under that provision.
Senator Simons: Your artists all have that registry number, 4.2(2)?
Mr. Aldous: Right.
Senator Simons: Have you seen YouTube’s proposed amendments? Have you seen the full text of them?
Mr. Aldous: I have not seen the full text of them. I have discussed them with the representatives from YouTube. I do not have an intimate working knowledge of those provisions, no.
Senator Simons: As you understand it, are you content with YouTube’s position on 4.2(2) and their suggested amendments?
Mr. Aldous: Well, I understand that their suggested amendments, frankly, represent a bit of a compromise for YouTube. They have readily said to us that for-profit commercial music is something that they are willing to let go of in this discussion. That’s my understanding.
I understand that’s their position. Our support for YouTube’s position with respect to 4.2 is more specifically regarding user-generated content and how that interacts with our strategy of generating these viral moments in the context of social media.
Senator Simons: I’m wondering if you’re going to get caught between the devil and the deep blue sea because you don’t have anything like the market heft of Sony, but you’re obviously not akin to a kid with a guitar and a webcam. You’re doing commercial highly produced music meant for a competitive market, but in a much narrower niche.
Mr. Aldous: Correct. I think that’s part of the challenge with that particular provision. It cuts a rather wide swath. The challenges, certainly at the House of Commons level, are in terms of trying to get some definition around what constitutes a for-profit or revenue-generating enterprise. That was one of our concerns coming out of those hearings, frankly, and how we can get some better definition as to what a revenue-generating enterprise is, as those are not all created equal, as you rightly point out.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: My questions are for the Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale representatives. I want to thank all the witnesses for their participation, but especially those from the Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale. I am familiar with the work you do to promote artists in official language minority communities and the success stories you are responsible for. I’m delighted that you’re here.
You talked about new section 5.2, and I’ll come back to that, but first, I’d like to hear how the artists who belong to your organization feel about the bill. We’ve heard a lot about YouTubers and the negative effects the bill would have on them.
Surely, some of your members create content that they post on YouTube, so I’d like to know what they think of the bill. Specifically, would the bill prevent them from reaching audiences outside Canada? What are the positive effects of the bill in its current form? I’d like to hear the perspective of the vocal and music artists your organization represents.
Ms. Heibing: Thank you for the compliment. On that issue, I think it’s pretty clear in the case of our artists that they make a distinction between content created by professionals and content created by persons who are amateurs. Our situation is nothing like that of the big players. We have a number of self-managed artists. There are many very small companies.
I would ask Ms. Bernardin to talk about her situation as a businesswoman, because she’s in a very different position. Our context means our audience is regional, sometimes national, but rarely international. We therefore need an act that will give us protection. Ms. Bernardin can provide further details on this issue.
Ms. Bernardin: I completely agree. Proportionately, the artists from our communities are very small fish in a huge ocean. I heard our colleague answer the question on discoverability and YouTube. Our artists need that kind of access. Canadian francophone markets outside of Quebec, where the ocean is that much smaller, so to speak, are decreasing. We have to be more ambitious so that they are able to access discoverability.
Then there’s the problem that there are very few such companies in our communities. Ms. Heibing mentioned the 11 incubators that ANIM is working with. We have to offer these companies better financial support so that they can be more competitive on the market, and especially so that the gap between small companies, such as mine, where artists... For example, when you’re talking about the Canadian francophonie, I am of the opinion that I am working with artists who enjoy a certain popularity.
And yet despite this popularity, the gap between these artists and those who work with the big record labels is enormous. My company does not have the resources to compete with these big labels in terms of marketing and discoverability. From the get-go, we always find ourselves a few steps behind.
Senator Cormier: You spoke at length about section 5.2 and the need to hold consultations between the CRTC and official language minority community organizations. What would be the impact if section 5.2 were struck out, in your opinion? What would that mean in concrete terms? That section includes a certain number of objectives that must be taken into account during the consultations that the CRTC would hold with your organizations. What would be the impact if this section were struck out?
Ms. Heibing: Thank you for the question. I will ask Ms. Mayrand to provide an answer.
Audrey Mayrand, Attorney, Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale: Hello. Thank you for the question. As was alluded to earlier, the Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale launched legal proceedings which could have been avoided had there been a section such as this one.
This section was not pulled out of a hat. It is based on criteria for consultations established by the Supreme Court. It creates a clear framework for the CRTC to hold consultations. Our organization’s position is that we simply hadn’t been informed of a process that would have a huge impact on us.
Firstly, we have to ensure that the CRTC takes note of this obligation and abides by it. Secondly, there must be clear expectations as to what that implies. What are the steps to be followed so that consultations are deemed sufficient and efficient?
As has already been alluded to, minority communities are not on an equal footing with an organization such as the CRTC, which is able to understand and evaluate the impact of its decisions on communities and to inform the communities about this impact so that they can participate in a process.
However, for a small music industry organization such as ANIM, a general or public notice that does not meet its particular needs is not enough to determine possible impacts on a community. It does not allow communities to fully participate and engage.
If we remove this section, we run the risk of repeatedly finding ourselves in situations whereby small minority organizations have to go to court to ensure their right to be consulted and be recognized and obtain compensation for damages caused by decisions made with no consultation.
[English]
Senator Manning: Thank you to our witnesses for being here this evening.
My question is for Mr. Aldous. You referenced the work that Nettwerk has done over the past decade to develop and refine its relationship with digital music services. Bill C-11, you have said, will interfere with those relationships to the detriment of Nettwerk and its artists by inserting a regulatory regime into those carefully negotiated and long-fostered private relationships. Effectively, if I heard you correctly, you have said Bill C-11 would make the CRTC a party to your private commercial agreements with no measurable benefit to either Canadian artists or Canadian music consumers.
I’d like to know what you see as the implications of this for Canadian artists and consumers and how you see Canadian artists responding to this if Bill C-11 is passed in its current form.
Mr. Aldous: Thank you for your question. The implication is what I touched on in my address to the committee that currently we have an open, flat world for Canadian artists within digital streaming services. Within that open and flat world, we’re able to receive very informative sets of data from our partners that allow us to both interpret the success of our artists that exists and predict with some degree of accuracy where that success may go internationally.
Our concerns, again, with a regulatory approach to a digital music streaming service is that that will interfere with how those services interact with Canadian music. It will result in a sort of segregation of Canadian music within Canada itself, and the discoverability of Canadian music outside of Canada will suffer.
It’s what we refer to at Nettwerk as “geofencing,” and some people call it “geolocking.” It’s a phenomenon where, within a digital streaming service, regional localized success feeds upon itself and ultimately locks an artist into a particular geographic area. Once that artist is locked into that geographic area from a streaming success perspective, it becomes extremely difficult to break that artist out of that geographically defined area. We see that not just with Canadian artists but with a substantial Australian roster as well. It’s a challenge for Australian artists. It’s a challenge for artists, frankly, from any smaller music market around the world.
The imposition of a regulatory approach will not only create an element of interference within the data that we receive; we believe it will ultimately result in Canadian artists being geofenced within Canada itself, which is not a particularly viable career path for Canadian artists in the streaming era. I’m not sure if that answers your question.
Senator Manning: That’s fine.
You noted that approximately 92% of Nettwerk’s streaming revenue comes from outside of Canada. You have said that one of your Quebec-based artists has approximately 98% of his streaming activity occurring outside of Canada. You warned about the dangers of artists becoming locked within their own domestic territories when it comes to digital streaming.
Does this put Canada in the lead in terms of global cultural protectionism?
Mr. Aldous: Yes, it does. That is one of our major concerns. My understanding is that Australia took a run at a similar set of legislation, as did France, both of which were abandoned. I don’t know what the status is of those pieces of legislation in Australia and France.
We’ve been told by our partners around the world that the eyes of the world within the digital music business are on Canada with respect to this legislation. We fear that the business model that we’ve built in an open world of digital streaming will become segregated and closed off on a regionally, geographically defined basis, and it will be increasingly difficult to break artists into other protected geographic markets around the world.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My question is for Mr. Aldous, from the Nettwerk Music Group.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I heard you say that the CRTC was going to interfere with algorithms in order to get what it wants. Let’s go back to Bill C-11, which we are studying. The section on page 16 is quite clear and states that the CRTC is not authorized to make an order that would require the use of a specific computer algorithm or source code. It is therefore up to the various stakeholders to choose the means that they will use to recommend Canadian content.
Did you indeed say that the algorithms would be manipulated by the government, or did I mishear?
[English]
Mr. Aldous: No, you did not misunderstand. Our concern, which we share with the Digital Media Association, is with the specific language of the legislation that says:
The Commission shall not make an order under paragraph (1)(e) that would require the use of a specific computer algorithm or source code.
While we appreciate that, we don’t think that goes far enough. We think that there should be a sub-provision added that prevents the CRTC from interfering with algorithmic decision making. So a subsection to section 9.1(8) should be added that ensures the CRTC will not require changes nor the use of undertakings with respect to algorithms or source code. We think that is different from simply saying that the commission cannot mandate the use of a specific algorithm or source code. So it’s an overall interference or imposition of undertaking on algorithms or source code as opposed to an imposition of a particular algorithm or source code on a digital service provider. We think that’s a very important distinction and this subsection 9.1(8) leaves that open to interpretation and possible manipulation by the CRTC.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Could you explain how your new formulation would be better than the one here or this subsection?
Mr. Aldous: Yes. I think it would take it a step beyond what’s there right now, saying not only could the regulator not impose a specific algorithm that was designed by the regulator or a third party for the regulator on the digital streaming services; it also would prevent the regulator from forcing the digital streaming services to manipulate their own algorithm to a particular end that’s dictated by the regulator.
So it’s the difference between handing the digital streaming service an engine that the CRTC has built versus getting under the hood and manipulating the engine that the digital streaming services have already built, if that’s not too much of an extended metaphor.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: It’s a much larger article that you’re proposing because it means you’re saying that the platform, if it has to use its algorithm to attain some result, that’s what you want to prevent. In fact, this is obviously part of the bill in the sense that the government wants Canadian content to be discoverable, and that’s what you don’t want, if I understand correctly.
Mr. Aldous: It’s not that we don’t want it. We think there are plenty of tools that are available within the digital streaming services today —
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Like what?
Mr. Aldous: Well, algorithmic discovery is only one form of discovery on digital streaming services. There’s what’s called organic discovery, which is the sharing of music among users and the creation of their own playlists and the sharing of those playlists, and then there’s what’s called editorial playlisting, which is human-based editorial, curated playlists on digital streaming services that allow for the highlighting and showcasing of Canadian talent. We believe our partners at Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon do a great job of that curatorial approach.
So there are other tools at the disposal of the digital streaming platforms that do not involve algorithmic manipulation, and we think those tools are more than sufficient to support Canadian content and Canadian discoverability on those platforms. It’s my understanding, certainly from Spotify’s testimony, that they’re more than willing to continue to do that and continue to support Canadian content discoverability through curatorial showcasing.
Senator Sorensen: I have two questions. The first one is for Mr. Aldous. It’s quick. What I heard you say was the CanCon regime would drive artists to American rather than Canadian labels. I think you’ve already answered that. Was that around discoverability and geofencing, et cetera? That’s what you meant by that?
Mr. Aldous: That’s correct. Artists and their managers would look at a geofenced Canadian music economy and say that we can’t have an international career if we base ourselves in a geofenced market that’s protected.
Senator Sorensen: So they would be more apt to go to an American label, for example.
Mr. Aldous: Correct.
Senator Sorensen: My next question is for both of you. I’ll ask Ms. Heibing to respond first and then Mr. Aldous. Do you think this bill as currently written has any benefits for Canadian creators?
[Translation]
Ms. Heibing: I think we are living in two very different worlds. The approach of the francophone industry in a minority context is very different from that of an international company. Our artists and managers are not in a position to even ask themselves if, for reasons of discoverability, they would be better off moving to the United States.
This is so far removed from our current concerns and the concerns of our industry that Ms. Bernardin and myself have been having a side discussion on Messenger. We were saying that it is as if you are asking us questions and regardless of whether the answer is yes or no, we can’t win. We are so far behind in terms of our knowledge of discoverability tools and the resources to be able to use them that we often have the impression that we will lose, whatever happens.
This is not a defeatist attitude, but we have to tell ourselves that the time has come to roll up our sleeves so that we, too, have the necessary tools. We will be forced to look at pooling resources in order to one day be able to say what we have to say based on data. We do not yet have data on our artists’ situation in the francophonie.
That is why I am not able to answer your question, and the fact that I can’t do so is in itself an answer. It’s not that I don’t want to have the answer, it’s that right now, we are not equipped to answer you and it is our collective responsibility to get the necessary tools in order to do so. It’s not right that I am not able to get the data and have the same resources as a private company. It’s not right.
[English]
Mr. Aldous: We’ve been so focused on the challenges of this bill, to be frank, that it’s difficult for me to change the lens of my analysis and say that these elements are positive. Again, we appreciate the spirit of the bill —
Senator Sorensen: The intention is good. Yes.
Mr. Aldous: The intention and the spirit of the bill are good. Of course, Nettwerk wholeheartedly and fully, as a part of the Canadian music business since 1984, supports anything that helps the Canadian music industry. There are undoubtedly elements of this bill that will do that. I can’t speak to those because, frankly, we’ve been focused on the part that we view as a challenge.
Senator Sorensen: Thank you.
The Chair: I have a couple of questions. My first one has to do with a problem that seems to be reoccurring. I’ve been hearing it from many witnesses and stakeholders, and that’s algorithmic manipulation, and I never knew what algorithms were until this study and this bill. The more I dive into it, the more scary it gets because at the end of the day, algorithmic manipulation determines what one sees and posts at the end of the day. That’s clearly the case.
In this particular bill, we have a government that has gone above and beyond trying to assure everybody that it’s not about algorithmic manipulation. They said this bill does not do that; it doesn’t give the power to some dark, nefarious force that will determine these things. Yet I hear a number of advocates for the bill say that we need exactly that in order to protect Canadian culture.
So we can’t suck and blow at the same time. Either the government is right and this bill does not allow for algorithmic manipulation or the chair of the CRTC, who testified before our committee, is right when he says, “No, the bill doesn’t give me the authority to do that, but it gives me the authority to force platforms to do that,” which to me has created a lot of uncertainty and discomfort on the part of Canadians who use these platforms for information, especially young Canadians — my kids’ generation and the others who use this for news, for entertainment. It seems that’s the centre of their universe.
Can the panel talk to me about their interpretation of the bill vis-à-vis algorithmic manipulation and if they think the bill gives the authority to the CRTC or to government to do this, or do they feel this bill doesn’t give that authority? And is it a good thing for somebody to have this authority, or is it a bad thing? I would like to hear your perspective on it.
[Translation]
Ms. Heibing: Before working in the music industry, I was in the financial sector, in an extremely competitive world. I am always shocked to see governments, including the CRTC, make forays into technology fields where it is always trailing behind. When you are talking about manipulating an algorithm, there will always be people who are far ahead of you and who can go much further than you.
My recommendation to the CRTC is to mandate a result, mandate the obligation to get a result, but not mandate the means by which we do so; it would have to impose quotas, it can mandate the result that it wants to get, but let the platforms, which have ample funds and technological resources, find ways to meet the quotas.
[English]
Mr. Aldous: Thank you for the question.
I think I addressed this previously around the amendments to subsection 9.1(8). All we can do is, as you say, go on what the chair of the CRTC has said, which is there does appear to be a pathway to the manipulation of algorithms in this proposed bill. I think it has to do with the distinction in the language that the Digital Media Association has pointed out in their testimony and our friends at Spotify have also pointed out.
To answer your question as to whether it’s a good thing, whether the government should be able to manipulate algorithms in a private enterprise, we don’t think it is. We think that the platforms as constituted are working. They are working, certainly, for many Canadian creators, ourselves included, and we believe that an open system without manipulation from government is the appropriate form of commerce and pursuit in this area.
Obviously, we wouldn’t be here if we felt there wasn’t a concern about that issue specifically.
Senator Woo: Thank you. My question for Mr. Aldous is to seek some clarity on the dichotomy that you have offered us between what you call the “scenes” approach to classification and a geographic approach. You also used the term “geofencing.”
You have given us the impression that it’s one or the other, and I don’t understand why that is the case, particularly in a digital context, where bits and bytes, by definition, don’t respect borders. Why does a piece of music, particularly music from your portfolio, which does not want to be identified as Canadian in the first place, why would it be precluded, even if it were classified partly as Canadian, why would that preclude it also being identified in whatever scene you felt was best for its dissemination?
I think about the football team Manchester United. Well, let’s use Manchester City, as they are doing better than United right now. Manchester City is beloved by Mancunians. It’s a quintessential in its origins local football team, but it is a global phenomenon now. So you can have one and both.
I would really appreciate you helping us understand why you draw this strict dichotomy between scenes and geography.
Mr. Aldous: Thank you for the question. I don’t know that it was my intent to draw such a stark contrast between scenes and geography. Absolutely, geographically specific artists can function within a global scene and can thrive both locally, in their own markets, and on a broader scale. Our artist Anomalie from Montreal is an excellent example of that.
It’s not so much that it’s one or the other. It’s that an imposition on listening habits that concentrates listening habits in a geographic area early on in an artist’s career will then concentrate that geographic listening habit over time, and that will appear, in our experience, to the streaming services as a lack of global relevance beyond that geographical area. So if you are creating a sort of microcosm of a musical community or a musical scene within a geographically defined area, that tends to build on itself and feed on itself to the point where it becomes increasingly difficult to engage listeners outside of that geographic area.
But we absolutely don’t think that there is any inconsistency with a thriving Canadian music economy with Canadian artists who do identify as Canadian but who engage in a scenes-based approach that is a global approach. If you take a scene like indie folk or something like that, which is more commonly described as a genre, but we think of it more as a community and as more of a scene, well, you’re going to have indie folk artists from all around the world with specific creative input into that scene that is distinctive and is maybe informed by their geographic point of origin, so there is definitely room and a need for Canadian voices in a scenes-based global economy.
A good example is a Haida artist whom we have signed, Carsen Gray, who is from Haida Gwaii in British Columbia. She is an Indigenous Haida woman and she has engaged in a sort of soulful pop scene, which has seen 89% or 90% of her listeners engaged from outside Canada. This is a woman who brings a very unique Haida voice to the scene she is engaged in.
So I do not see it as an inconsistency at all. I see it as a danger of building a fence around a geographic area that prevents Canadians from engaging in a global scene.
Senator Woo: But there is no necessity for the fence to be built, and there is no a priori reason why an algorithm might not classify a piece of music as both Canadian and part of the indie folk scene, for example, and allow it to thrive in both domains. Is that a fair summary of what you have said?
Mr. Aldous: Yes, I think that’s a reasonable summary of what I’ve said. I would only caution that the classification of something as Canadian — there is nothing wrong with that classification. It’s the question of whether you are imposing a CanCon-style regulation on that that there has to be a certain amount of that music that is made discoverable within the streaming services. I think that’s what ultimately we are afraid will result in a geofencing phenomenon.
[Translation]
Senator Clement: I would like to thank all the witnesses for being here today, as well as Ms. Heibing for her brief answer concerning the big players and the means and resources at their disposal that will allow them to abide by their perceived obligations according to the bill.
[English]
My question is for Mr. Aldous. I hear you say that Canadians are benefiting from the current context, and we certainly hear that, right? Outstanding, excellent artists are succeeding. Canadian artists are succeeding. But I wonder if you could speak to the emerging artists whom we can be concerned about. Those who face barriers. They are outstanding and excellent, but because of societal issues, they face additional barriers. If you could comment on that.
Maybe also, just to piggyback on Senator Sorensen’s question, I know you’ve turned your mind to the challenges, but how would you amend Bill C-11 to address your concerns around algorithmic manipulations?
Mr. Aldous: Thank you for your question. I think in terms of artists who face barriers, who face challenges in meeting a global music market in a flat digital world, again, I believe that the best approach there is a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. If the government wants to assist those who deservedly want to have their voices heard, I think that the best approach is to support those artists in the developmental level and their ability to make excellent music, have access to excellent producers and well-funded, well-run music companies in Canada that can take them to that global market.
Certainly, for independent artists within that flat digital world, there are communities that are shared among the platforms that will start that process, and what typically happens is you see a pathway where an artist has started to develop within an online community, and at some point, that hits the radar of a company like Nettwerk, and we start approaching those artists to elevate them to the next level.
I think it’s not so much about regulating the discoverability of that content. It’s about supporting those artists at the development level to allow them to put themselves in a position where their music is being discovered. I think that’s an important distinction, and it’s something that CIMA, the Canadian Independent Music Association, highlighted well in their testimony before the committee.
In terms of how we would change Bill C-11, I think I have touched on that already. We would like to have it made explicit that it’s not open to the CRTC to manipulate the algorithms of the digital music providers. I think that is really at the core of what we’re talking about.
As I mentioned in my presentation, we also share many of the views expressed by Spotify in terms of if the CRTC is to be viewing or taking a position on digital music providers, there should be specific criteria it must consider before regulating music streaming services. We don’t see that in this legislation, and we believe the rules should ensure that Canadian consumers get options while retaining control of their listening experience.
Finally, the whole concept of Canadian content needs to be updated, and related obligations should reflect the digital audio streaming model rather than an old terrestrial radio model, which is what we believe the current legislation reflects.
The Chair: Mr. Aldous, I would like to ask a short question, similar to what Senator Clement did but in a different way.
It seems to me that emerging artists currently don’t face any barriers online with the platforms that are available to them. Would you agree with that statement? My question is simple: With Bill C-11, would they face any barriers?
Mr. Aldous: I think in a flat digital world, the barrier you face is not getting onto the platforms; it’s cutting through the noise and being heard, and that is everyone’s challenge within a flat digital world.
For emerging artists, I don’t think Bill C-11 will either help or hurt them, frankly. Where it will hurt them is when they are looking to find success outside the borders of this country if they have become what we call geofenced in the process of their development. We believe a CanCon-style regulatory regime, which, let’s face it, did many wonderful things for the Canadian music economy, but it was really designed for artists who fit into particular commercial radio formats, and it worked very well for those artists.
That’s never been the focus of Nettwerk. We have always been interested in artists who fit somewhat outside of those formats. So imposing that sort of regulatory approach on emerging artists I don’t think will help them in the long run. There may be some mid-term benefit to allow you to have some discoverability within Canada, but as I think I have explained today, I think that would very much be a two-edged sword for those artists in terms of their long-term career viability.
The Chair: I would like to thank our panel for an interesting discussion. We had a number of senators with more questions on the second round, but time has elapsed.
[Translation]
I would like to sincerely thank the witnesses for being here today.
[English]
For our second panel, I am pleased to welcome Fenwick McKelvey, Associate Professor, Concordia University, who is with us by video conference; Emily Laidlaw, Canadian Research Chair in Cybesecurity Law and Associate Professor, University of Calgary, also via video conference; and Blayne Haggart, Associate Professor, Political Science, Brock University.
Thank you for being with us. Each of you will have five minutes of opening statements, and then I will turn the floor over to my colleagues for Q & A.
Mr. McKelvey, you have the floor.
Fenwick McKelvey, Associate Professor, Concordia University, as an individual: Thank you very much.
I’m an associate professor in information and communication technology policy at Concordia University. My research addresses the intersection of algorithms and artificial intelligence, or AI, with media policy. I submit these comments today in a professional capacity representing my views alone.
I’m speaking from the unceded Indigenous lands of Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather today. That acknowledgment has great urgency to me before these hearings. As a participant of the Natural Culture Summit, I witnessed the consensus to reimagine cultural policy post-Massey, a future where investments in the arts are something other than a settler colonial project, a future where cultural policy is key to government’s responsibilities and the relations to the many people who find their home in Canada.
That future is also bound to public service media in Canada. For all the talk today about disinformation and threats to democracy, the academic evidence is clear. Canada’s resilience depends on public service media. Public service media requires funding and innovation. Change cannot wait.
Every year we are reminded about how irrelevant public service media is becoming, as I ask my students about their own media habits. These students are part of a new generation of cultural creators working on new platforms under precarious working conditions. We need only be reminded about the coordinated harassment against Clara Sorrenti most recently to know that who gets considered a cultural worker and protected as a cultural worker is fraught. I know this better thanks to Margaret McDonald and Dr. Valerie Webber’s research on sex workers online and my collaborations with Saskia Kowalchuk on meme makers on TikTok. These creators need rights.
These are issues of great importance but are not directly addressed or at least not clearly addressed by Bill C-11 presently. I recommend that Bill C-11 is narrowed in scope and that subsequent legislation addresses the objectives of Canadian cultural policy, as I have discussed, renews public service media and develops rights and protections for digital creators.
The act today has one clear objective: ensure that the CRTC has the capacity to regulate large, economically powerful domestic and international firms involved in broadcasting distribution. Online streaming, regrettably, remains a broad term, but the mission-critical function of the new act must address the convergence of large online video-on-demand services and the traditional broadcasting distribution undertakings. The maturation of streaming services to a few dominant players indicates that online services have become cable by other means.
Bill C-11 must ensure the CRTC has the jurisdiction to regulate this converged broadcasting system. To do so, I see four areas of improvement: discoverability, privacy, reforms to the CRTC and its scope itself.
First, the lack of a clear definition of discoverability, as opposed to the prominence of catalogue quotas, undermines a larger movement for algorithmic and AI accountability. I recommend the act define discoverability and its consequences for regulated entities and its feasibility under the government’s commitment to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. In addition, I recommend a more coordinated effort across government to implement an algorithmic and AI accountability act.
I also believe the discoverability question is a proxy question that might be rephrased. Does being a private data collector grant broadcasting distributors unfair market power? I think so. As I have written with my co-author Bram Abramson, we recommend the act adds the following policy objective:
. . . contribute to the protection of the privacy of persons and recognize the public and cultural significance of information about them.
The amendment recognizes both the need to harmonize privacy and broadcasting policy and the significance of cultural policy as a public commons that requires care and protection, especially in an age of DALL-E and Stable Diffusion.
Given the complexity of these matters, I am discouraged that the act does not follow the recommendations of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review, or BTLR, for the CRTC reform, especially the establishment of a public interest committee. As someone who cares and participates actively at the CRTC, I worry the expectations that C-11 places on the CRTC are unrealistic and that the bill gives too much voice to corporate interests and too little to public interest. I recommend the BTLR’s recommendations, Section 1, be considered as part of C-11 or another act in tandem.
Finally, I continue to not know the scope of the act. The lack of clarity and unwillingness to narrow its application to Canada’s media system remains C-11’s enduring shortcoming. I recommend section 4.1 be clarified, as well as how platform affiliates would be subject to potential regulation.
These matters are matters for today, and what I believe and am most passionate about are the future cultural policies that I discussed at the onset of my remarks. I feel that this policy agenda continues to be stalled due to lack of reforms to C-11. Thank you very much.
Emily Laidlaw, Canadian Research Chair in Cybesecurity Law and Associate Professor, University of Calgary, as an individual: Thank you for the invitation to speak about Bill C-11. I’m going to focus my remarks around social media, in particular content posted to social media, because that’s the particular area I work in.
There are two issues: whether social media should be captured by the bill at all, and second, if so, whether the provisions are narrowly scoped in a way that protects freedom of expression. I think that the most helpful thing I can do is ground everyone in what freedom of expression means in law and in the broader context of internet regulation, and how this can impact the legality of Bill C-11.
Some of this is known, but wait with me for a little bit as I dig deeper on the bill. Freedom of expression includes the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas regardless of frontiers. It is a broad right. We protect it because it matters to democratic society in the search for truth, in figuring out who we are and what makes us tick. It is the building blocks for a creative, resilient and informed community or communities. So when analyzing the constitutionality of the bill, the question is not only the purpose — whether it is to restrict free expression — but whether that is just simply its effect.
The indirect knock-on effect of this legislation on internet users and what they seek, receive and share online is important to the analysis. If the adverse effects of the provisions on social media users are too great, then the interference with free expression is disproportionate and unconstitutional.
Freedom of expression must be given a large and liberal interpretation, and any restrictions narrowly construed. This poses a dilemma for Bill C-11 because, to be nimble, it makes sense that the details to regulations are pushed there, that it’s pushed to the CRTC to develop — something that I advocate in the area of online harms. This is something we leave to a regulator to develop. But as drafted, Bill C-11 leaves too much to be decided later, and user-generated content on social media ends up being captured within it — almost the entire social media ecosystem. So the provisions as they stand are vague and overbroad.
I understand the desire to target a sliver of commercial content, but the problem right now is the drafting of it because of what it captures. It will fail the test of requiring that restrictions of rights should be narrowly construed.
Here are a few of the issues. One is what social media is. Bill C-11 does not say. If the goal is to target the biggest players, then be explicit. It’s not perfect, but one way would be to target very large online platforms. Does social media include private messaging? Private messaging groups can be enormous. The bill applies to uploads. Does this include links? What if a link is posted on Facebook, which takes a user to a website where a person posts songs or videos, and it’s a subscription site? What about links that embed videos, like a tweet linking to a video on YouTube?
The other issue is that the bill captures a program that directly or indirectly generates revenue. This provision in particular fails the test of a narrow restriction on rights. Generates revenue for whom? How indirect? The web of revenue streams on social media is complex, and social media is now mostly audio and visual content, so a lot of bog-standard content could be captured. I think the goal is to target specific types of commercial content, and I recommend a very narrow provision that errs on the side of being underinclusive.
The other issue is discoverability. The bill imposes discoverability of commercial Canadian content on social media, and if we’re looking at targeting this narrowly to commercial content on very large platforms, then there is some scope for this to be reasonable. But in terms of proportionality, consider if it will achieve the desired outcomes. Does it restrict more speech than necessary? Does it incentivize privacy-invasive practices? One issue might be whether it compels speech by platforms in ways that cannot be justified. There has been some testimony that the focus is on algorithmic outputs, not the algorithms themselves, but that’s really neither here nor there in terms of the legality of approaches.
Some of the legal risks I have highlighted are cured by the requirement that the regulations must be consistent with free expression. This forces a rights analysis, which is good, but here is the problem: What are the metrics for free-speech-compliant broadcasting regulations applying to social media content? This is new territory in Canada and globally, so telling the commission to consider free expression does not tell the commission how to do it.
Canadian constitutional law is far too narrow a framework to consider free expression. We’re operating in a global ecosystem, and it’s imperative that the infrastructure of the internet is considered. For the commission to properly consider free expression, it would need to consider, of course, Canadian free speech jurisprudence, including Charter and private law, but also international human rights, the work of standard-setting bodies like the OECD and the International Telecommunication Union, or ITU, and internet regulation broadly. What is the infrastructure of the internet? How does information flow?
Ultimately, social media is not a broadcasting program, and that is the problem here. There are legitimate reasons to regulate some commercial aspects of what is posted on social media, but either not under this legislation or done in a different way. I would say that Mr. McKelvey has identified some creative solutions in what he just spoke about.
If you do proceed, I have two pieces of advice. One, narrow targeting of social media to social media of a certain size and narrow the range of content and behaviours that are being targeted. In short, be underinclusive in the name of certainty and constitutionality. The second would be broadening the focus to algorithmic accountability to get to the real root of the problem. Mr. McKelvey has written some excellent work on discoverability and algorithmic accountability that I think should be guiding the thoughts of the commission and how you proceed in the Senate. Thank you.
Blayne Haggart, Associate Professor, Political Science, Brock University, as an individual: I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before you this evening to discuss Bill C-11. I am an associate professor of political science at Brock University. I’m also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo and an associate senior fellow at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. My research focuses on the governance of the knowledge economy, which includes platform regulation. I’m the author of several journal articles and the co-editor of two volumes on these topics, as well the author of a book on Canadian and global digital copyright policy. I should also note that as a radio DJ in my undergraduate days, I filled out my fair share of CanCon log sheets. So I’ve been thinking about the role of government in cultural policy from a practical perspective for quite a while now.
I would like to focus my comments on Bill C-11’s discoverability requirements. If passed, they would represent a significant advance in Canada’s approach to regulating the global content intermediaries that have emerged as significant and largely unaccountable cultural regulators in and of themselves. The goal of these requirements is to promote Canadian content and the work of Canadian creators on online intermediaries or platforms. As such, they represent strong continuity with long-established Canadian cultural policy objectives.
The first key point I’d make is that these rules would not involve government interference into an otherwise free marketplace of ideas, which is the traditional terrain for these kinds of CanCon debates. Rather, they target companies already acting as consequential regulators. That’s what it means to be a platform, that you make the market.
The Chair: Professor Haggart, if you can slow down a bit because the interpreter is having problems. I know you’re trying to race a seven-minute statement into five minutes, but if you can slow down a bit.
Mr. Haggart: I will do my best. Basically, the traditional terrain for the CanCon debate has been the idea of whether the government should interfere in a free marketplace of ideas, but that’s not what’s going on here. It’s targeting companies that already act as consequential regulators, and that’s what a platform is. This is where algorithms come in. Algorithms become one of those magic and scary words that intimidate people, but all they really are is a set of rules that are repeated over and over again. I think of it as a form of automated bureaucracy. It is a form of regulation.
In this case, companies like YouTube or TikTok depend on this automated regulation to decide what to show users, in other words, their private discoverability rules. These privatized discoverability regulations are not designed simply to surface the most popular content or the content that you, the viewer, or reader, are most interested in. These companies do not just tell us what content is popular; they define what popular means. They already create winners and losers and they define popular to fit their own interests, however they decide to define them.
Now, this self-interestedness can also actively disadvantage certain groups and creators. For example, YouTube has long been criticized for allegedly demonetizing LGBTQ content. I say “allegedly” because YouTube doesn’t publicize its ranking criteria and makes an example of secret regulation. It also means that researchers and creatives for that matter have to reverse-engineer the algorithm to understand how it works. The need for this kind of guesswork also makes it harder to craft legislation to deal with these platforms. One of the benefits of CRTC regulation of these platforms would hopefully be the production of data so that we can make policy based on hard evidence rather than anecdotes.
It’s also important to understand that these companies change the rules all the time in ways that help some creators and hurt others. There’s nothing natural or inevitable about this current privatized status quo. In short, the question before Parliament is this: What criteria do we want to use to determine what content gets promoted to Canadians, and who should be allowed to make these decisions? These are all legitimate reasons for action by the federal government and the CRTC.
The biggest problem with the discoverability requirement as it currently stands is that it’s really not clear how we would know if it’s working or not. The idea of discoverability itself is very much in line with the theory that cultural policy must be supply-driven, and not just demand- or market-driven. Ideally, targets would help to promote not only Canadian culture as a whole but also francophone and Indigenous culture as well as creators outside of the Canadian mainstream. I think this is in line with what Professor McKelvey was talking about, but there needs to be a robust discussion about what these targets should be, and I don’t think that has happened.
I’ll end with a quick warning. Bill C-11 should not be seen as the end of the journey but rather the beginning step toward robust platform regulation. The government and its regulators must begin building the capacity to understand and regulate these companies, and this capacity requires that regulators be given tools to actually regulate. There will be mistakes, certain regulations will underperform or they won’t work the way that we thought they were going to. That’s completely normal in a new area like this. When this happens, we reassess and adapt. Germany, for example, is one of the pioneers in dealing with online hate, and they’re already on the second iteration of their groundbreaking legislation. Meanwhile, when it comes to platform regulation in Canada, we’re not even out of the starting gate yet, and I think it’s time we got under way. Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: My question is for Mr. McKelvey, but I would also like Mr. Haggart to answer, too.
Mr. McKelvey, I was most interested to read the article “It’s time for an online creators act” published in Policy Options magazine last August, that you co-authored. The article talks about power dynamics between social media platforms and online creators. I am particularly interested in the power dynamics between online platforms and creators.
In your opinion, how does Bill C-11 help maintain a balance between those online platforms who, obviously, make a lot of money, and creators, some of whom do earn a lot, but others much less? Does Bill C-11 maintain an equilibrium so that creators will be happy? How will Bill C-11, as it is written right now, allow creators to enjoy better working conditions? I would like to know what you have to say on these matters.
I would also like to hear Mr. Haggart, who has just stated that some creators enjoy more advantages than others. These are fundamental questions for me, because creators are the basic source material of content that is posted on digital platforms.
[English]
Mr. McKelvey: Thank you for the remarks. To begin, I’d want to emphasize that there’s a spectrum of creators and that one of the challenges presently is the confusion or at least a need to delineate the different spectrums at places from, on one end, commercial creators with a designation before the government and, on the other end, user-generated content creators. One of the parts that I think complicates the bill is the growing involvement of platforms in cultivating creators, whether that’s through affiliate programs or within podcasting deals with Spotify. It’s important to say that when we’re discussing creators, we’re not talking about all the same category.
The problem with the bill presently is that that nuance is lacking. At best, we have 4.1, which alludes to the possibility of capturing certain creators who are entering into contractual relationships with platforms might fall under that bill. But that leaves two big issues for me on the table. One, it’s not clear how those particular categories of creators will be captured. When I’m talking about keffals and their relationship with Twitch cutting online streamers’ profits and revenues over the past couple of weeks dramatically, it’s speaking to many different labour market conditions, and it’s hard to see how that will be captured by a one-size-fits-all approach in Bill C-11.
To me, it’s really important to have a bill and regulation for digital creators. It’s more complicated than I think is being considered here in Bill C-11. My worry is not that there isn’t a need for reforms; it’s that I think Bill C-11 is cumbersome in doing that. In particular, the ways that we’re talking and the way a lot of this will be ultimately downloaded to the CRTC raise risks about known issues in the consultation mechanism of the CRTC. Without proper representation of creators and creators’ unions, there’s something where you’re not going to see necessarily the ability of having anything be seen as effective or meaningful, especially for a whole generation of creators who haven’t grown up with and don’t see themselves as part of the CanCon system.
Senator Cormier: Thank you. Mr. Haggart?
Mr. Haggart: Thank you for the questions. In terms of people who are disadvantaged by this, again, the key point here is that when we’re talking about algorithms or these privatized rule-setting systems or privatized discoverability, they have to choose and decide what they’re going to promote, how they are going to measure popularity and what is considered beyond the pale.
For instance, in March 2020 there were reports that YouTubers who mentioned the word “coronavirus” in their videos were being demonetized. So the platform basically said — so this was the chains of platforms that did it, and they only figured this out afterwards — and the reason YouTube gave was that it was to protect advertisers from being associated with so-called sensitive content. Of course, this kind of disadvantages people who want to talk about that.
It also creates a level of precariousness in how creators — in the relationship with these platforms. It’s much less stable than just, “YouTube will serve us the most popular content everywhere.”
On what Professor McKelvey was saying about a lack of nuance, I think that’s a really good point. At the same time, though, I’m a bit sympathetic with the government’s position here because the problem with getting too precise in these kinds of definitions in legislation — user-generated content itself, as Professor McKelvey pointed out, is a huge category — would run the risk of locking the regulator into a specific moment in time and being unable to adapt. That said, as I mentioned in my testimony, certainly a bit more guidance could be helpful in figuring out exactly where the CRTC and the government want to go in this area.
Senator Cormier: Thank you.
The Chair: My question is for Professor Haggart, but I’d like to have all three professors weigh in on it.
Professor Haggart, I did hear clearly about the fact that algorithms can be used by current platforms and can be used in different ways, but at the end of the day, who is the person who determines how those algorithms are being used? Is it the government, the CRTC or consumer choice? At the end of the day, I always have a lot more confidence in Canadians than I do in anybody that I don’t know who they are and where they are and why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Is allowing these platforms to determine their algorithms any different than allowing a radio station to use ratings to determine what their playlist is or a bookstore to use their bestseller list in order to determine what books they showcase at the front of the store? At the end of the day, even Canadian artists need revenue. There comes a point in time where if they can’t keep getting the customers to come back to consume what they’re producing, we’ll have a nation where the only culture we support are radio stations and music and books that government subsidizes because Canadians don’t want to listen to them or read them. I’d like your thoughts, Professor Haggart, on that, and maybe the two other witnesses can weigh in. I think that’s the crux of the debate here.
Mr. Haggart: A lot of this debate is kind of gussied up in, you know, we’re talking about streaming, platforms, algorithms. Basically, it comes down to who should be allowed to set the course for Canadian culture. Is it the free market? As I said, it’s not really free if it’s basically companies that are determining what gets seen. Or is there a role for government intervention in this area?
To answer your first question about who sets these rules, right now they’re being set by private companies. It is the algorithms. It’s not consumer choice that’s setting them. Consumer choice and consumer actions on these platforms are an input into that, but it’s not the only one. It’s whether or not something is seen as being a good fit for advertising, or if it’s seen as being controversial or something like that. The fact of the matter is we don’t know because these algorithms are proprietary knowledge. They’re trade secrets. So we can’t know exactly how these things work.
Is it any different from a store setting up a display at their front door? I would argue it’s different from that, if I’m not misrepresenting what you said. I think it’s a bit different from that in a couple of ways.
First of all, it’s similar to the CanCon regulation. We’re basically saying the goal is to promote not just the most commercially popular stuff, which has not been the goal of Canadian cultural policy for the past three or four decades. It’s to promote culture that we see as necessary for the betterment of the country, for instance, francophone and Québécois culture, which does not have a global market share. We could expand this to include Indigenous and marginalized people as well.
The difference, I think, is that when we are talking about platforms, it’s not a world of thousands of different booksellers. Basically, we have four or five platforms that determine what Canadians see and also which Canadian creators are promoted and which ones are left by the wayside.
Ms. Laidlaw: I have a few remarks to say about this because I want to make sure we don’t conflate a few different things when we talk about accountability here, or at least algorithms. We have a legal question here that is going to have to be grappled with, which is the extent that any legislation can compel specific algorithmic outcomes, and whether that is a form of, essentially, compelled speech. There’s a line of authority on this in U.S. case law that indicates this might be a problem. For example, there have been issues before about it being viewed as compelled speech when it is mandating certain search results.
I don’t think it would be as extreme in Canada. It certainly doesn’t seem to be the case with case law, but it means you need to be careful about imposing too hard requirements here.
What is important is algorithmic accountability. I’m not in favour of pointing at the platforms and saying, “This is the big bad; they’re fully driven by self-interest,” because I think it’s a lot more complex than that. There’s a lot of curing that we need to do of certain behaviour, and we need to implement accountability of those algorithms. Companies do engage in certain private curating of algorithms, and we need them to do that. The question is how much government oversight is needed of that.
What is key here are two things. One is accountability generally, which is the need for better transparency on the part of these companies about how their algorithms are operating and what they’re doing with it, as well as proper auditing of these algorithms and oversight of that.
The other is whether there is a legitimacy to requiring certain algorithmic output. It’s a question mark legally. I think it can be supported. The questions then become more about whether it delivers the broadcasting objectives, which, for example, Patrick Aldous and others in the previous panel dug into and answered that particular aspect of the question.
Mr. McKelvey: I will just check my notes, and I was saying similar things to Professor Laidlaw. I think there’s a conflation of algorithmic accountability, which is the real and pressing issue, and whether algorithmic accountability will fix the CanCon problem, and they’re two separate issues.
The Chair: Thank you. That was succinct and to the point.
Senator Simons: I’m going to start with Professor Laidlaw. Sections 4.1, 4.2 and 4.2(2), this is where we seem to get mired in the muck. I’ve looked at suggested language from both TikTok and YouTube that proposes ways of narrowing the scope so that it includes full songs as opposed to snippets of songs and only the stuff that is commercial content.
Then we had Monica Auer come before us from the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, who said with brisk efficiency, “Why not just get rid of section 4 altogether?” She said it with great conviction. I’m still trying to decide if that wouldn’t actually be the simplest and most elegant solution rather than trying to rewrite section 4 to make it more complicated and more narrowed. I wondered what you thought of that Gordian knot approach that she proposed.
Ms. Laidlaw: I didn’t see what she proposed. Walk me through what the impact would be if we removed section 4 entirely. I have it before me.
Senator Simons: It would mean nothing that is user-generated would be scoped in. But it would also mean that YouTube would get a pass on the big music labels like Sony and Warner Bros.
Ms. Laidlaw: I think it’s the cleanest approach. The cleanest approach here is just to scope out user-generated content entirely. But I am conscious of the very specific issue with YouTube.
I would say I think there is legitimacy behind targeting maybe that specific type of content, but maybe not doing it through the lens of it being social media or through the lens of it being user-generated content.
What I don’t know, because I come from mostly doing social media regulation specifically — and this is kind of that lack of transparency — is what precisely is that relationship, then, between, say, YouTube and Sony, for example. Is this even a situation where YouTube is acting as, say, social media, and it’s user-generated content being posted, or is this almost more of a licensing arrangement?
That’s what came to mind for me is that I don’t actually know what that arrangement is here because it still might be captured if it’s not actually traditionally what we would think of as user-generated content.
Senator Simons: It’s uploaded content. It is uploaded by the record labels and not uploaded by YouTube. This is the rabbit hole that we spin down.
Ms. Laidlaw: But is there some other contractual relationship with YouTube that changes the nature of it? Of course, now we’re going into that direction of monetization directly and indirectly. But I think there might be a different way to scope that by taking a closer look at what maybe the nature of those specific types of contractual arrangements is so that it could be better targeted.
Senator Simons: I do not actually think the government intended to target an indie folk singer who sells sweatshirts or an Indo-Canadian mom who makes skateboarding videos on TikTok, yet I fear that is exactly what the language allows.
Ms. Laidlaw: That’s my fear, too. Even the examples I gave were examples of absolutely what is not being targeted here by the legislation, but that is the effect of it. It creates a ripple effect of uncertainty. At minimum, I think this would have to be drastically narrowed in scope to be able to target — even just to target a very narrow set of what they’re trying to go after now, with the hopes that maybe they revisit the legislation later, which probably won’t happen for a very long time. But that would be the better approach — either get rid of it or make it very narrow.
Senator Simons: I would like to say, Professor Haggart, you raise such an important point. We know that the algorithms tend to favour controversial material, salacious material, material that is buzzy with the news that Elon Musk may be purchasing Twitter any minute now. I think it’s really important for us to be mindful that the algorithms are not agnostic or benign. At the same time, I don’t see anything in this bill that addresses the issues that you and Professor McKelvey have raised. The bill doesn’t try to solve for that problem. It’s dealing with a CanCon issue, not with an issue of whether the algorithms are fair to artists or whether they are privileging some kinds of works over others.
Mr. Haggart: I think it’s trying to. And I think this is where the discoverability issue comes through. If we’re talking about, for instance, transparency and things like this, transparency and things like that are only useful if we know where we want to go. Especially if these things are black boxes, the way you evaluate an algorithm is by evaluating the outcome. We have to have an idea about where we want the destination to be in order to figure out if it’s a good thing or not.
Senator Simons: The outcome for YouTube that they want is to maximize ad revenue.
Mr. Haggart: Sure. Yes, and that’s not the interest — directly — of Canada in terms of our cultural policy or at least that’s the way it has been historically. It has been about promoting cultural policy as culture, recognizing that we shouldn’t leave these things completely to the marketplace.
The idea of having discoverability rules is — again, it’s not an insane idea. It is very much in keeping with that kind of tradition. But the problem is, at least as it stands — and I think that you’re hearing a lot of frustration even among us as witnesses tonight — a kind of a lack of understanding about, okay, sure, discoverability, great. To what end? What is that going to look like? I think it’s probably a good idea to have some or even a lot of flexibility in this bill. But I also don’t think the government has done itself any favours by saying, okay, here is the plan. These are the kinds of things we want to capture; here are the things we don’t want to capture, but we’re also cognizant that the market might change and these companies are moving targets, so we need to give ourselves some flexibility.
Senator Simons: I have so many more questions, but I’m going to pass the baton.
The Chair: You still have time, senator.
Senator Simons: Professor McKelvey, when you were talking about CUSMA, you raised the issue of whether there’s a CUSMA issue in the lack of a discoverability definition. I wonder if you could explain what CUSMA issue you thought might emerge.
Mr. McKelvey: I want to begin by giving a shout-out to the work of Robyn Caplan and Tarleton Gillespie. Their piece on tiered governance in Social Media + Society outlines, I think, what Professor Laidlaw was saying about whether this actually counts as user-generated content anymore. I think there continues to be a lack of definition of what type of creators we’re talking about, and particularly the contractual relationships between online creators and platforms is something that is not well investigated and needs more attention, because it would, I think, cause changes around section 4.
I think the second point around discoverability is that the consequences of promoting content or Canadian content put an onus on platforms to produce outcomes, and that seems out of scope or potentially at odds with some of the algorithmic carve-outs that are with the USMCA as well as the links to the platform liability exemptions under USMCA, both of which I feel are issues of policy coordination and ones that will be worked out by lawyers. I think they raise real issues just as there have been around the CRTC and simultaneous substitution issues for the football — that’s a known issue and it’s one that should be addressed before you pass the bill.
Senator Simons: If you could forward to the committee the work of the academics you just mentioned, that would be terrifically helpful, if you can send that to the clerk.
Mr. McKelvey: Will do.
Senator Simons: Thank you, all.
Senator Manning: Thank you to our witnesses. Many witnesses who have appeared before our committee have raised the broader implications of Bill C-11 in terms of global culture protectionism. Were other countries to copy the approach of Bill C-11, we would have a much smaller global cultural world where most artists would once again only be reaching a domestic audience and many smaller artists would find that unsustainable. I invite any witness to answer the question: Does this concern you? Does either one of you believe Bill C-11 as currently written would cause those concerns to become a reality?
Mr. Haggart: I can start. I’m relatively less concerned about that because my key point is that these algorithms, these platforms, their privatized discoverability itself right now has its own biases. It’s not a neutral set-up. That means that the companies are able to modify it to do what they would like it to do.
If, say, Canada had a CanCon regulation, a discoverability rule, that basically moved the ranking of Canadian content within Canada away from the global norm of Google’s algorithm or YouTube’s algorithm, there would be nothing stopping Google, if they wanted to, from introducing a modifier to the algorithm to bring it more in line with what would be their perception of what it should look like in Google’s larger universe. This would be an issue with a technical fix to it if the company wanted to do that.
Senator Manning: Would any other witness like to make a comment?
Mr. McKelvey: The one quick comment I would say is I feel there has often been use of this kind of threat by platforms, and this is something I saw in the Australian news code. While I have real concerns about the Australian news code, I think this idea of exiting markets and the consequences for creators is one that I would want to have investigated more. I certainly think there are potentially risks. I also think that the cultural policy in Canada is not simply an economic one. I think too often we neglect the responsibilities of a welfare state to protect the arts and culture in our discussions about the economic protection of the arts and culture.
Drawing those distinctions out and nuancing potential risk is important for me.
Ms. Laidlaw: I just want to say that the story of a lot of internet regulation has been that what happens in one country has a ripple effect in other countries. But I don’t want that to ever dissuade from the decision to impose domestic law, right? It shouldn’t. But I do think that when we look at the scope of what has happened — I mean, from a legal perspective, you would look at what the objectives are and whether those objectives are actually achieved in a way that minimally impairs and disrupts different rights. That’s where it is key. Does this actually help creators and help industries in the way that is intended? If so, there is a bit more justification for interfering with rights in other ways. If it’s not really achieving that objective, it’s far less justifiable to be interfering the way it is.
Senator Manning: We have heard the concern raised — and heard it here again this evening — of the power of the platforms when unchallenged by governments and what it does to regulatory and policy authority. We have also heard from witnesses who have serious concerns about the potential power of the CRTC — about closed-door hearings and small online creators being swept aside by large traditional broadcasters who know how to navigate the regulatory system and therefore have all the power. My question is about trying to find the balance where everybody at least has a level playing field.
I’m wondering how we work toward finding that balance within the legislation to deal with the impact from the big government bureaucracy, especially on small online creators who feel they are out in left field here and not necessarily in the circle, where they can have things done on their own.
The Chair: Does anyone want to take that? You’re not obligated.
Ms. Laidlaw: I might kick it off. It’s the answer you’re not going to want to hear, which is that there is no easy answer to this.
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t right now with this type of legislation. Because of the changing nature of the landscape, some of this detail needs to be kicked to a regulator, right? It does.
But one of the issues that we are facing is a lack of enough detail in the legislation to be able to confidently direct the CRTC in what it is supposed to do. As it stands, I don’t think it cures the problem of actually knowing and holding platforms accountable for what they do. I don’t really see that accountability mechanism. I see output requirements, but I do not see the kind of accountability that we should be looking for from platforms.
I do want to keep the focus narrow here. I know we veer into different other spaces like online harms. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We are very narrowly talking about broadcasting regulation and that type of accountability for these platforms. It’s one piece of the pie.
Mr. McKelvey: Just to add that, if we’re talking about platform accountability and the fact that this is going to be delegated to the CRTC, it sounds like a joke to me. The CRTC has deep issues in its ability to hold current monopolies in Canada to account. Particularly, we can talk about “Red Friday” and what is going on with Rogers. As someone who has deep experience with dealing with technical matters before the CRTC involving confidentiality, algorithms and AI, the consistent inability of the commission to be able to demonstrate that technical competence is something that should be particularly concerning. The demands won’t work in the bill. This is something I’m deeply worried about as someone who is going to get stuck having to deal with this for years to come. I can understand the confidentiality issue. The CRTC has issues doing basic internet measurement, which is a minusculely simpler problem than the discussions presently about algorithmic recommendation. If you seriously think the CRTC has the capability to fix this now, I think that’s a huge oversight.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My question is for Blayne Haggart.
Firstly, I have to say that the way you approach discoverability is most interesting. For quite a few weeks now, we have been hearing content creators say how much algorithms are a well-kept secret and only take into account popularity and the interests of creators and consumers. I would like you to delve a little more into this issue. These algorithms have to take into account what is popular and what is not. What other criteria could be used?
You spoke of publicity. Theoretically speaking, could contracts be drawn up between record labels, the music giants and, for example, YouTube and Spotify to promote certain singers and groups who would benefit from being on these types of platforms? Quite frankly, we just don’t know, we don’t work with these companies. We don’t know how they set up their algorithms. If you could briefly give us your point of view on the subject.
Could you also explain in more detail how you think that the platforms can eliminate any negative impact on discoverability of Canadian content? You said that they just have to make a few tweaks, which will eliminate the negative international impact of promoting Canadian content in Canada.
Those are my two questions and I hope that they have been translated. I would like to hear your views on the subject, because your way of looking at algorithms is different from the platforms’ approach.
[English]
Mr. Haggart: Thank you. If I don’t completely answer your questions, please do repeat them.
On the last point about them being able to change the algorithm to counteract any kind of CanCon effect, that’s more just a thought exercise. I don’t know how the algorithm works because I don’t work for YouTube. But I do know that these are made by humans, and they are designed like “if this, then that.” That’s how these things work.
In a sense, it’s convoluted. But it can be as straightforward as that in thinking about it in the abstract. All that means is that if, for instance, they saw a piece of Canadian content that was being surfaced in a certain way and was being picked up or not picked up, then in theory, it would be possible to account for that difference when surfacing that kind of content to another audience.
On the other point with respect to what you were saying at the beginning, the fact of the matter is that these algorithms are kind of inscrutable by design. Partially, it’s so people can’t game them, but it also means that they change all the time. I have a quote here from one creator:
This is YouTube. . . . They make the rules; it’s my job to try and figure out what the hell they even are before they change again.
This is the situation that we’re dealing with. It’s not just the creators. It’s also the regulators who have to try to figure out exactly what is going on with all of this.
I would also like to echo and support Professor McKelvey with his critique of the CRTC. I’m very much in favour of the idea of government intervening in this market. However, I’m also very conscious of the fact that the CRTC has not exactly shown itself to be a very strong regulator in the telecom space in general. But that doesn’t get rid of the need for regulation in this area. What it means is that we need an overhaul of the CRTC in some way to actually do things like include the small groups and small creators that I think the previous speaker mentioned.
Senator Woo: Professor McKelvey and Professor Laidlaw, encouraging us to think about algorithmic accountability rather than the tampering of algorithms specifically or even offering some proposed output so that companies can tamper with the algorithms themselves, the idea of algorithmic accountability is intellectually very appealing, but I wonder if it’s just that. I would like to ask the witnesses to think of policy tractability. What is achievable? What can be done?
To the extent that we have already heard from so many of you that these algorithms are inscrutable, secret, always changeable, closely guarded and that there is a lot of probably duplicity going on even when some information is released, do you not think that an approximate secondary approach to trying to achieve certain policy objectives, not by tampering with the algorithms, but by offering some desired goals is perhaps the best that policy can get at insofar as achieving the objective of promoting Canadian content? I’m assuming there is some agreement around the need to promote Canadian content.
Ms. Laidlaw: Thank you for the question. I think that’s an elegant solution. Let me explain it this way: We have been exploring this idea, many of us working in the area of online harms regulation and platform accountability. It was more about how you make platforms accountable without telling them specifically what they are supposed to do. So the goal is to reduce online harms, address hate speech. In a lot of ways, it is tier 2. It’s about promoting the cultural industries in Canada and protecting them. One way toward that is improving that access by regulators and by third parties to hold them accountable by seeing what they are doing with their algorithms.
But the other is then maybe setting certain policy goals, saying this is what is hoped to be achieved. You can decide how to achieve these different goals. You can decide based on your bespoke platform what that is, and then report back at the steps that are being taken. Many platforms are making some of those efforts. In that way, you’re both improving accountability and addressing some of the specific needs in Canada.
I think that is a potential approach that could be explored. It is being explored elsewhere. So I will say that a lot of the shift in approaches that we were seeing in European law reform was much more process-based.
But the takeaway is that I would echo the concerns about the CRTC. I would be much more direct in saying they are not a technology regulator. They are not an internet and technology and human rights regulator. So when we start talking about these issues of algorithmic accountability, as mentioned elsewhere, we are looking at the idea of some sort of digital regulator. This is not just restricted to the legislation that we’re talking about today. That might be beyond the scope of what is before you, but that certainly is what concerns me.
Mr. McKelvey: I would say there is a care and respect for the CRTC. I do not mean to slag it too much, but I want to see it improve. I also think these ideas of where, particularly for algorithmic accountability — does that fall into that, or does it fall into AIDA or reforms to Bill C-27? That is a deeper question, and it would be great to see more coordination around that.
Often we are using algorithms for a proxy that now largely depends more on artificial intelligence, and the fact that we’re dealing with something where there is no coded statements but a neural network that has emergent behaviours brings out a whole other host of risks. I struggle to see these discussions keep up with that. That worries me, as I want to see these discussions keep up with the pace of technology.
On innovations, particularly the Information Commissioner’s office, the introduction of an age-appropriate design code is an innovation where you start to think about the ways that standards could be set in the design and development of AI and algorithms. That’s in the U.K.
Mr. Haggart: At the end of the day, in order to have accountability, you have to define what you want your goals to be. Now, it could be something vague like promoting Canadian culture, but at the end of the day, somebody is going to have to put some meat on that and say what that means. This is the issue.
Returning to, for instance, traditional Canadian content regulations, the goal was to promote Canadian culture, but what it measured was how many times I played a Canadian song on the radio, and it had the knock-on effect of that.
I take your point about looking for, if not necessarily the second best, but the tractable policy goal — that’s what a CanCon target is. It’s basically saying okay, this will get there. It’s a proxy for the thing that we want, which is to promote Canadian culture, even if it’s not all of Canadian culture.
The Chair: We talked a lot about algorithms here tonight, which, as I said, has been a fascinating thing for me over the last little while. I listened to our professors’ very interesting testimony.
I listen to Spotify; I’m on Twitter; I watch Netflix; I Google all the time, and it seems the things that pop up are always things that are relevant to my interest zone. Maybe this is simplistic, but I believe these are platforms that are businesses, and they are so successful because they give people like me and their clientele what we want to see and hear in a quick, expeditious fashion.
Maybe you can correct me if I’m wrong, and I’ll turn it over to Senator Cormier.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: My question is on another subject entirely, and it is for Mr. McKelvey. I apologize, I used your first name earlier.
I would like to get back to this power dynamic between platforms and creators, creators who obviously are not protected in any way when negotiating with the platforms. My question is perhaps not linked to the bill per se, but how do you think we could increase the protection given to creators when dealing with the platforms, and how could we improve their clout in negotiations with the platforms?
[English]
Mr. McKelvey: That was one of my comments at the start. There is really a hope of seeing a digital creators’ act or something where you would potentially see something similar to the news remuneration where there are collective bargaining rights or particular ways that creators would be able to enter into binding arbitration with the platforms, and seeing where a role for the government could be.
I think that you’re opening up a very important line of questioning. I do not see it here in the bill presently, and that’s something which I think is actually quite detrimental. That is partially why I’m suggesting carving out the limited function of this bill because I think you’re rightly raising deeper questions about bargaining power between small creators and large platforms. I would think that if you look at Twitch’s decision to lower the rates for its streamers, it demonstrates the imbalances in those bargaining powers. I do not see how Bill C-11 will get to those directions, but I do see that as something that is of eminent importance for the government legislation going forward.
Senator Cormier: Thank you.
The Chair: Does anybody want to tackle my brief question? Maybe Professor Haggart because I think it’s more addressed to you?
Mr. Haggart: Thank you. This is what makes this issue so difficult to grasp. When you’re depending on a discoverability algorithm or on a search engine, you don’t know what you’re not seeing, by definition. Effectively, you end up having the illusion of comprehensiveness. All of a sudden Google will return thousands of potential websites for a certain query, but it’s not clear exactly how it has been ranked, and you’re also not sure about how that works.
Yes, it looks like it’s providing you with everything that you would need. But we can say that — and other people have remarked on this recently — that the Google search engine, kind of like the best-in-class of these things, is becoming worse. It’s being overwhelmed with ads, and it is harder to find results that are actually relevant to you.
These are decisions made by Google to privilege certain content over others, and these decisions might not necessarily have you as the searcher or your best interests at heart. Also, there might be, for instance, 100 pages of results. I don’t know your practices, but if you’re like me, you don’t go past the first 10 anyways because that’s good enough, even though the stuff that might be best for what you’re looking for might be on page 4 or 5.
The Chair: I have to thank the panel for being with us. It is very interesting, I have to say. I can tell you that if my professors when I was at university were as interesting as this panel has been, I might have done a PhD.
All joking aside, your testimony was well worth our time and effort. Thank you for coming before us.
(The committee adjourned.)