Google warns Liberals’ online harms bill ‘will result in the blocking of legitimate content’ – National Post

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Google and other critics have taken issue with the requirement to take flagged content down within 24 hours and report content to law enforcement

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The Liberal governments proposal to force online platforms to monitor all user content and take down posts they judge to be illegal will result in the blocking of legitimate content, says Google.

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The company warned the government in a consultation on the proposed legislation that automated systems are still evolving, and often struggle when it comes to nuanced or context-dependent definitions.

For example, automated systems looking for hate speech or terrorist content might mistakenly identify news coverage or academic research that deals with these topics.

That means requiring platforms to use automated systems to proactively monitor and block content would likely lead to the blocking of large amounts of legitimate content and undermine Canadians access to valuable information, Google said.

The Liberal government has promised to introduce legislation tackling online harms defined as terrorist content, content that incites violence, hate speech, intimate images shared non-consensually and child sexual exploitation within 100 days of Parliaments return. The government outlined details of its proposal in July and asked for feedback, though it has refused to release the 423 submissions it received. Google is now the latest among a number of organizations and academics to make their own submissions public.

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Many of those experts have warned the government that implementing the proposal the way its currently structured would violate Canadians constitutional and privacy rights.

Google and other critics have pointed to a litany of issues with the proposal, including the requirement platforms monitor all content, that they take flagged content down within 24 hours, and that they report content to law enforcement.

Algorithms and automated systems are a key part of Googles products, driving everything from its search engine results to targeted advertising and video recommendations on YouTube. But the company warned Heritage Canada those systems simply arent up to the task of identifying harmful content where nuance or judgment is required.

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It gave the example of a video of a military conflict. In one context, it serves as evidence of atrocities that have been committed; in another, the video could be used as promotional material for a terrorist organization or it could be used as important political speech by marginalized populations, Google said.

It argued that the exact same iconic and horrifying images of historic genocide are used by those who want to advocate for justice and tolerance, on one hand, and those who advocate for violence and further genocide, on the other hand. Between these two poles are those who aspire to report on historic events in an objective manner. Computers cannot yet distinguish this key context.

Unlike some of the others who participated in the consultation process, the company isnt asking the government to entirely drop the proposal, outlining a number of suggestions to improve it.

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That includes scrapping the 24 hour deadline by which platforms have to remove content, and establishing a more flexible process.

The problems associated with an extremely short takedown timeline will only be compounded by the fact that any user flag can trigger the start of the countdown, it said. Facing a short deadline and high penalties for non-compliance, platforms will choose to prioritize speed over accuracy and automatically block/remove content that is subject to a flag if their automated system concludes there is even a remote possibility that the content is prohibited.

As a result, significant amounts of legitimate and lawful expression that was either incorrectly flagged by a user or mischaracterized by an automated system will be removed, Google said.

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Another issue with relying on user flags is that they can be wrong or used maliciously, it said, pointing to its experience with users flagging content that violates YouTube guidelines. We receive hundreds of thousands of content flags on a daily basis. While many are good-faith attempts to flag problematic content, large numbers of them represent mere disagreement with views expressed in legitimate content or are inaccurate.

Google is also concerned about the government suggestion to require platforms to report content to law enforcement, saying platforms may feel pressured to report content that could even potentially be prohibited. It said this regular flow of large volumes of user data from private companies to law enforcement organizations without user knowledge would violate consumer expectations about privacy and government surveillance in a democratic country.

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Google also asked the government to drop a requirement that platforms collect and report anonymized demographic data about their users. It said forcing platforms to collect sensitive personal data of Canadians creates an ongoing privacy risk in the case of a data breach.

The online harms bill was developed under then-Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, who was moved to the environment file in the Oct. 26 cabinet shuffle. New Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez was asked about the criticism the bill has received shortly following his swearing-in, and said he would listen and consult.

Asked whether that means he will be reworking the bill, Rodrigues responded: Ill be consulting, thats for sure.

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Google warns Liberals' online harms bill 'will result in the blocking of legitimate content' - National Post