Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who blew the whistle on the tech company by accusing it of prioritizing profit over public safety, says Canada’s new online harms legislation isn’t just good, it’s “one of the best bills that has been proposed today.”
In an interview with CTV News Channel’s Power Play host Vassy Kapelos on Tuesday, Haugen said the new bill is a meaningful step toward holding tech companies accountable for neglecting user well-being, especially among children and teens.
“We know the platforms know this is a problem but different platforms are taking different levels of effort to try to deal with this,” Haugen told Kapelos. “And that’s why we need laws like the Canadian online safety bill, to make sure Canadian researchers can ask questions (like) is the platform your kid is spending time on doing everything they can to keep that kid safe?”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government on Monday tabled its long-awaited legislation with the aim of better protecting Canadians, and particularly youth, against online harms.
In addition to targeting harmful content shared by users – such as intimate images shared without consent and anything used to bully or sexually victimize a child – the bill introduces new responsibilities for online platforms, as well as a regulatory framework for enforcing those responsibilities.
“It’s less a bill that says, ‘You must take down every last dangerous thing,'” Haugen said. “It’s a bill that says, ‘If you know there are risks, you have to tell us, you can’t lie about it, and you need to tell us what your plan is for mitigating those risks, and you need to give us enough information that we know you’re making progress.'”
Haugen took a job as a data engineer at Facebook in 2019, saying she hoped to generate positive change from within the company.
In 2021, she released documents to the Wall Street Journal that exposed how much Facebook knew about the harms it was causing, and how it chose not to take measures to protect users from those harms. That same year, she testified to a U.S. Senate panel about how Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken democracy, saying the company’s leadership knew how to make the platforms safer but refused to make the necessary changes because “they have put their immense profits before people.”
One of the rules introduced by Canada’s new online harms bill is broadly defined as the “duty to act responsibly.” It puts the onus on companies to reduce exposure to harmful content by “continuously” assessing risks, developing mitigation strategies and giving users better tools for flagging harmful content.
The bill would also require platforms to be more transparent about measures they’re taking to protect users from harmful content and to share data with researchers. In order to enforce new rules for social media companies, the bill would lead to the creation of a new “digital safety commission” comprised of five members appointed by cabinet.
This commission would have the power to order the removal within 24 hours of certain types of non-consensual and exploitative content. Cabinet would also appoint a new “independent” ombudsperson to advocate on behalf of users.
Haugen said the bill takes a “sensible, moderate” approach to internet safety that is less about policing the internet than carving out legal rights for the public.
“It’s not about fear mongering, it’s not about censoring people, it’s about making sure we can balance the profit motive with the safety of our families, the safety of our communities,” she said.
“If we don’t have legal rights to get basic data on those products or a legal mandate like the online safety bill around a duty of care for kids, those platforms can do whatever they want and they know we’ll never know the truth for sure.”
Researchers have linked spikes in depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harming behaviours, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts with Instagram use.
While the damage suffered by some users can never be undone, Haugen said it’s not too late for legislation to have a measurable impact on the harms social media platforms could inflict in the future.
She explained that while social media companies don’t seem motivated to invest in safety for the sake of preventing harm, they do appear to be motivated by fear of consequences.
Now that the European Union has launched its Digital Services Act, the U.K. has passed its online safety act and Canada has tabled its own bill, Haugen said companies are beginning to realize they can’t ignore the problem any longer.
And amid this shifting tide, Haugen said Canada has an opportunity to emerge as a global leader in online safety legislation.
“I hope Canada takes a step forward, because (it) can help organize other countries that might otherwise not be able to put together such an effective piece of legislation to pass similar laws in their own countries,” she said. “That’s how we’ll really get an equitable, linguistically diverse, safe online ecosystem of social media platforms.”
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
