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Engage with Government of Canada? Are social media platforms asked to take down contents?
Apr 3, 2025
Engage with Government of Canada? Are social media platforms asked to take down contents?
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0:00
I'm I'm curious about uh the the social
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media platforms a fair number of them
0:04
have either significantly changed or
0:06
straight up removed their um monitoring
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or disinformation misinformation
0:12
monitoring um programs I'm thinking of X
0:15
I'm thinking of
0:16
meta has that impacted your ability to
0:20
monitor that
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ecosystem um does that concern you in in
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terms of how quickly and
0:28
efficiently uh probably false
0:31
information is being
0:33
addressed maybe I'll start with Lissa
0:35
and then we'll turn to
0:36
Al it hasn't affected our ability it
0:40
just makes our capacity um all and what
0:43
we're doing all the more
0:46
important is there anything you want to
0:47
add to that just to note that the
0:50
Canadian digital media research networks
0:52
on Friday posted their early assessment
0:56
of the campaign as you may know they
0:59
Prov provide a an assessment of the
1:02
overall Canadian ecosystem and that's
1:04
one of the issues they
1:06
raised and then um uh my other question
1:09
was in terms of
1:11
um uh disinformation campaigns that you
1:14
may not have spotted uh have has site or
1:18
any government entity asked the
1:20
platforms to uh combat or remove any
1:23
particular networks or campaigns or
1:26
since uh in the last few weeks even in
1:28
the preit period any networks I saw Tik
1:30
Tok for example said they'd taken one
1:32
down back in January but it was a small
1:34
one if have you guys made any similar
1:36
requests and was that followed up on
1:38
start Bridget I don't know if you have
1:40
anything sure absolutely so um when we
1:45
look at the situation of of Miss and
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disinformation uh we look look at it
1:50
pretty holistically along with our
1:52
colleagues in site um in the site
1:55
contract it's very much looking at
1:57
whether or not there are links to
1:58
foreign interference
2:00
and so one way we do that um is through
2:02
our entire mandate within the
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communication security establishment so
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looking at um using our um intelligence
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mandate uh signals intelligence to
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determine if there are foreign links so
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that's one aspect of what we do in
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understanding where Miss and
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disinformation is coming from and
2:18
attributing it uh separately from that
2:21
we do a lot of work to understand um how
2:25
Miss and disinformation is propagated
2:27
online and the tools and techniques used
2:30
by the Cyber threat actors to do that
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and we have spent some time uh in the
2:34
last couple of years analyzing a lot of
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those threats we don't uh necessarily go
2:40
directly to the platforms to address
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those specific issues but do have
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discussions with the platforms about the
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threats that we do see and so have
2:49
shared uh with platforms the concerns
2:51
that we have in in the use of artificial
2:55
intelligence techniques for example both
2:57
to generate and promote Miss and
2:59
disinformation
3:03
RM Canada has a standard practice of
3:06
engaging the um of engaging um social
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media platforms when we have identified
3:13
uh a foreign connection so we've done
3:15
that in relation to spamf flage we've
3:17
done it in relation to the doxing
3:19
websites we've seen we did it in
3:21
relation to the work we did with site uh
3:24
during the um Liberal Party of Canada
3:27
leadership uh campaign uh and we have
3:31
done it in relation to uh this issue of
3:34
the of the
3:37
bounties I will uh do a last call for
3:40
questions oh there's a question online
3:42
from Ry Cella from the hill times please
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go
3:48
ahead hi uh can you hear
3:51
me
3:53
yep uh great um I mean you might have
3:57
already answered a part of it uh but I
3:59
wanted to specifically ask you about Tik
4:02
Tok uh since you mentioned um threats
4:05
from PRC and in the past we've heard
4:08
about uh you know how Tik Tok uh could
4:13
could kind of be linked to um the
4:16
Chinese uh government and and
4:18
administration is there any concerns
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about content uh being like uh political
4:25
content on Tik Tok and how it's
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influencing people uh in the elections
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thank
4:33
you br maybe maybe I'll just say um so
4:38
uh as I had just mentioned uh we we do
4:40
look at uh the content of um
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understanding what a particular Miss and
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disinformation issue may be so we within
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the communication security establishment
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don't monitor what we see online so our
4:53
colleagues uh for example at the gak RM
4:57
do monitor uh for Miss and
4:59
disinformation
5:00
but it it comes to particular issues of
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of Miss and disinformation and
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understanding who may be behind uh a
5:07
particular campaign we can and do use
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our foreign intelligence mandate uh to
5:12
inform those
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connections and I would say that we we
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see the um we see the campaigns across
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all the uh across all the platforms and
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uh from the RM perspective we don't
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treat one platform any different uh from
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another and often actually we wanted for
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crossplatform
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um operations as
5:37
well all thank
5:42
you final question anybody any last call
5:45
Emily you've talked about engaging the
5:47
social media platforms um are you
5:49
satisfied with how they are um dealing
5:53
with your concerns I would you like to
5:56
go
5:56
first so we're pleased that that they
5:59
engaging with us that engagement occurs
6:02
bilaterally and also in a multilateral
6:05
group so we're we're pleased with that
6:09
part of the engagement I think it's
6:11
important to say that the government of
6:13
Canada does not provide instruction to
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social media platforms instead what do
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we do and I think Bridgit U mentioned it
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uh quite properly is what's provided is
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a sharing of information it's more like
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a Clearing House and what we do is we
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encourage them to enforce their
6:33
Community
6:34
standards is there anything you look on
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to that that's exactly correct Vanessa I
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I would um I think it's really important
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to remember that countering
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disinformation is a whole of society
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effort so uh the questions are focused
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on what we're expecting social media
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platforms to do uh but Al mentioned
6:53
earlier that there are other think tanks
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and Enterprises that are looking at this
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ecosystem and I would encourage can to
7:00
also think of themselves as being active
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participants in there so if there are
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concerns from various communities or
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individuals about information that is
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perceived to be disinformation we
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encourage you to go to the Democratic
7:12
institutions website look at the tools
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there that are are prepared to help you
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engage with that information and if you
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have your own concerns specific to the
7:21
ability to um proceed with this
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Democratic process that our elections
7:25
report to the social media platforms and
7:27
if you have concerns about specific
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instances that could be foreign
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interference please uh encourage uh you
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to report to site in that regard so we
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can continue our monitoring
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effectively and may maybe if I can add
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to that too um on on that theme of
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encouraging resiliency and the ability
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to recognize and understand what may be
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Miss and
7:47
disinformation uh as I mentioned before
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one of the issues that we've seen in the
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past couple of years is the increased
7:52
use of artificial intelligence both to
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generate and spread Miss and
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disinformation we have recently
7:58
published uh a document uh threats to
8:01
democratic process uh 2025 that outlines
8:05
those threats and concerns um encourage
8:08
everyone to read through the document uh
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understanding those threats is an
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important part of being resilient
8:17
yes he
8:19
Chris um I just want to come back to
8:21
what Miss galaza said earlier you
8:22
mentioned RRM engages with the platform
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you mentioned a number of examples
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including um uh not just this spaml but
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the the the Bounty program when you say
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you've engaged with them what does that
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mean have you asked them for example to
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take down
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content as Al explained we don't ask
8:40
them to do anything other than uphold
8:42
their own rules and so when we call them
8:45
it's to share with them what we're
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seeing and flag that we think this might
8:49
be something you want to uh measure up
8:52
against uh your own uh your own policies
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uh and they uh they take that away and
8:59
uh uh and they they they make their own
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they make their own decisions um the the
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challenge with this information once it
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lives in the digital ecosystem is that
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it can uh it can reemerge it has spread
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in ways that we don't necessarily see
9:15
until it reemerges uh again so um uh we
9:20
we we engage those social media
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platforms as soon as we can but there's
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no guarantee that even if they take as
9:29
much action as they possibly can that
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the information hasn't hasn't already
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spread and that's why we will go back to
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them uh again and again when we have
9:38
something to share we will engage uh the
9:40
the social media uh platforms and I I
9:44
just want to underscore what my
9:46
colleagues have said that by sharing the
9:48
information about how digital
9:50
transnational repression for instance is
9:52
operationalized by a hostile actor using
9:56
technology leveraging potentially even
9:59
your social media accounts um we we help
10:03
people to identify it and we remove its
10:06
power and that then we hope over time
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changes the calculus for the malign uh
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State actors uh in conducting this kind
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of activity uh in in Canada and with
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Canadians and and have you found that
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social media platforms have
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been Cooperative to with say you go to x
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and say we think this breaks your uh
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terms of of of of use um for each of the
10:33
platforms the big four let's say five uh
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do they do that or do some ignore and
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then others listen how would you assess
10:40
that for each always answer our phone
10:42
calls uh and they take the action as uh
10:46
as as they see
10:52
fit I think this concludes our the press
10:54
conference uh thank you very much
10:56
everybody
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