SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 176 - Mar/30/23

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Mar/30/23 4:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand the member takes exception to the idea that Canadian content might feature a little more prominently in the news feeds of Canadians on social media platforms. I wonder then, what does the member think about the current state of affairs, which is that social media companies, behind closed doors, without any transparency, concoct these algorithms and are deciding right now what Canadians see and what they do not see based on rules that have nothing to do with the public interest and that have absolutely no transparency at all. Does the member object to the current practice of using algorithms to filter content, which is already happening? It is just happening with corporate interests behind closed doors.

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Context: House Hansard - 176 - Mar/30/23

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Mar/30/23 6:13:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-11

Madam Speaker, earlier tonight, I heard another Conservative MP talk about Fahrenheit 451, and I thought maybe he was about to start talking about when the Harper government closed a number of libraries that were world renowned for fisheries and oceans. It actually burned a bunch of books and other material at that time. That was not what the member chose to talk about, but it was an example of how governments do indeed have agendas. It is important to defend the freedom of people against the tyranny of governments. However, it is equally important to defend people against the tyranny of wealthy private interests, which is a continuous blind spot of the leader of the Conservatives. When he talks about inflation, people would think it is only government spending that drove inflation. He cites the Governor of the Bank of Canada. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has also said, at the finance committee, that companies are raising prices well above the increase in their input costs. The Conservative leader talks about government putting more Canadian content in the algorithms that show Canadians what they see in their newsfeeds or streams, but the fact of the matter is that right now those same social media platforms, without any supervision and transparency, also make decisions about what people see. He says that we should trust in the greed of corporations to create an online meritocracy. Let us get real. Does he think social media platforms are not showing people more disinformation about Bill C-11 right now, because it is in their interest that—

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Context: House Hansard - 176 - Mar/30/23

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Mar/30/23 6:19:19 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-11

Madam Speaker, there is one kind of threat to free debate, which is to silence people. Another way to silence people is by putting words in their mouths. What I said earlier is that I am concerned, and I think it is naive to expect that social media platforms do not have an agenda and that as they write algorithms in private, outside of any kind of transparency or accountability, they do not consider their own self-interests in the ways they promote particular kinds of content. The point is not to say that someone else is going to police all of that content. Bill C-11 is talking about promoting Canadian content within the feeds of Canadians. I do not think there is anything particularly nefarious about that, and there is room for reasonable debate about how that gets defined. However, what I was saying earlier is that I do not understand why this guy, who says he is so concerned about freedom, does not care a whit about what is going on behind closed doors right now with people who are accountable to no one and have all the power and control he says he is concerned about.

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