Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. My name is Steve de Eyre. I'm the director of public policy and government affairs for TikTok Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague Justin Erlich, the global head of policy development for TikTok's trust and safety team. He's joining virtually from California.

Thank you for the invitation to return to your committee today to speak about the important issue of protecting Canadians from disinformation. The topic of today's hearing is important to us, to the foundation of our community and to our platform.

TikTok is a global platform where an incredibly diverse range of Canadian creators and artists have found unprecedented success with global audiences; where indigenous creators are telling their own stories in their own voices; and where small businesses like Hamilton's DSRT Company, Mississauga's Realm Candles, and of course Smiths Falls' McMullan Appliance and Mattress are finding new customers, not just across Canada but also around the world.

Canadians love TikTok because of the authenticity and positivity of the content, so it's important, and in our interest, to maintain the security and integrity of our platform. To do this, we invest billions of dollars into our work on trust and safety. This includes advanced automated moderation and security technologies and thousands of safety and security experts around the world, including content moderators here in Canada. We also employ local policy experts who help ensure that the application of our policies considers the nuances of local laws and culture.

When it comes to misinformation and disinformation, TikTok takes an objective and robust approach. To start, our community guidelines prohibit misinformation that may cause significant harm to individuals or society, regardless of intent. To help counter misinformation and disinformation, we work with 19 independent fact-checking organizations to enforce our policies against this content. In addition, we invest in elevating reliable sources of information during elections, during unfolding events and on topics of health and well-being.

We relentlessly pursue and remove accounts that break our deceptive behaviour rules, including covert influence operations. We run highly technical investigations to identify and disrupt these operations on an ongoing basis. We have removed thousands of accounts belonging to dozens of networks operating from locations around the world. We regularly report on these removals in our publicly available transparency centre.

Addressing disinformation is an industry-wide challenge that requires a collaborative approach and collective action, including both platforms and government. At the heart of this collaboration lies transparency and accountability, which we believe are essential to fostering trust. We're committed to leading the way when it comes to being transparent in how we operate, moderate and recommend content, empower users, and secure our platform. As part of this commitment, TikTok regularly publishes transparency reports to provide visibility into how we uphold our community guidelines; how we respond to law enforcement requests for information, or government requests for content removals; and attempts at covert influence operations that we have disrupted on our platform.

Our commitment to transparency is also guiding our work with Canadian officials, including in the national security review of TikTok under the Investment Canada Act. We have been working with officials to ensure that they understand how our platform operates, including how we protect Canadians' user data and defend against things like disinformation and foreign interference. As part of this process, last year we offered Canadian officials the opportunity to review and analyze TikTok's source code and algorithm. While the government has not yet taken us up on this opportunity, we are hopeful that they will do so. We will continue to work collaboratively with the government in the best interest of Canadians.

Such collaboration will be critical as we approach the next federal election. In 2021 TikTok worked with Elections Canada to build an in-app hub that provided authenticated information on when, where and how to vote. That year we were also the only new platform to sign on to PCO's Canada declaration on electoral integrity online. As we approach the next election, we will be building upon these efforts and leveraging learnings and best practices from other elections taking place around the world, including in the U.S.

Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention that today's meeting is taking place during Media Literacy Week, an annual event promoting digital media literacy across Canada. As well, yesterday was Digital Citizen Day, a day that encourages Canadians to engage and share responsibly online. Education plays a critical role in empowering Canadians to be safe online and build resilience against misinformation and disinformation.

In Canada these events are led by MediaSmarts, a Canadian non-profit and a global leader in this space whose work TikTok is very proud to support.

We look forward to sharing more with you about how we are addressing these important issues.

Thank you again for the invitation to speak with the committee today.

Transcript

Discussions (0)