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Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee ELECTORAL MATTERS COMMITTEE Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections and Electoral Administration Melbourne—Thursday, 19 November 2020 (via videoconference) MEMBERS Mr Lee Tarlamis—Chair Ms Wendy Lovell Mrs Bev McArthur—Deputy Chair Mr Andy Meddick Ms Lizzie Blandthorn Mr Cesar Melhem Mr Matthew Guy Mr Tim Quilty Ms Katie Hall Dr Tim Read Thursday, 19 November 2020 Electoral Matters Committee 41 WITNESS Mr Julian Knight, MP, Chair, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, UK Parliament. The CHAIR: I declare open the public hearing for the Electoral Matters Committee Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections and Electoral Administration. I would like to begin this hearing by respectfully acknowledging the Aboriginal peoples, the traditional custodians of the various lands each of us are gathered on today, and pay my respects to their ancestors, elders and families. I particularly welcome any elders or community members who are here today to impart their knowledge of this issue to the committee or who are watching the broadcast of these proceedings. I welcome Julian Knight, MP, Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee at the UK Parliament. I am Lee Tarlamis, Chair of the committee and a Member for South Eastern Metropolitan Region. The other members of the committee here today are Bev McArthur, our Deputy Chair and a Member for Western Victoria; the Honourable Wendy Lovell, a Member for Northern Victoria; Andy Meddick, a Member for Western Victoria; and Dr Tim Read, the Member for Brunswick. All evidence taken by this committee is protected by parliamentary privilege; therefore you are protected against any action in Australia for what you say here today. However, if you repeat the same things outside this hearing, including on social media, those comments may not be protected by this privilege. While you are covered in Australia under parliamentary privilege for any comments you make today, you should note that Australian law cannot give you the same protection with respect to the publication of your evidence in the jurisdiction you are giving evidence from. All evidence given today is being recorded by Hansard. You will be provided with a proof version of the transcript for you to check as soon as available. Verified transcripts, PowerPoint presentations and handouts will be placed on the committee’s website as soon as possible. I now invite you to proceed with a brief statement, following which you will be asked some questions by the committee. Mr KNIGHT: Thank you, and thank you for inviting me to give evidence to your committee today. My committee and its predecessor committee have been looking into the impact of social media for the past four years. We have seen that big tech have influenced almost every aspect of our society—how we communicate, how we access services and how we consume media. This has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to elections, though, we have learned one major lesson—that current electoral law is not fit for purpose in the digital age. First, it is well known that social media companies’ business models revolve around delivering targeted advertising, and this has spread to politics. Often people do not know who has targeted them, why and who is paying for it. This lacks transparency, prevents accountability and undermines people’s faith in the political process. Political advertising on social media must be held to some standards, or the same standards as political advertising in all other mediums. I welcome the fact that the government is conducting consultation—the UK government—into extending the UK’s regime on imprints in political material to digital advertising, though it is disappointing this will not come into effect before the elections in Wales, Scotland and London and the county council elections across the UK in May next year. We must also require that companies’ advertising libraries are much more comprehensive in terms of the information they tell us. Second, social media companies have exacerbated the issue of mis- and disinformation. Social media algorithms have helped amplify harmful disinformation and conspiracy theories, such as narratives spread by QAnon. In some cases we have seen social media companies like YouTube allow conspiracy theorists to monetise their hoaxes and it is only when committees such as ours point this out to them that any action is taken in the contrary. At the same time, social media disrupts quality journalism and public service broadcasting through both its dominance of and a lack of legal liability in the digital advertising market. This traditional media cannot compete with and be challenging PSB prominence. The cornerstone of any strategy against this must be a comprehensive digital and media literacy program for both kids and adults. Also companies must be more responsible with how their algorithms promote content. Whilst we must be mindful of freedom of speech, that does not equate to freedom of reach, and companies must design algorithms more responsibly and focus on labelling or correcting the record in instances of viral misleading content. Thursday, 19 November 2020 Electoral Matters Committee 42 Finally, new technologies pose issues for campaign finances. Last year the predecessor committee questioned PayPal as to whether their services were allowing benefactors to send thousands of microtransactions to political parties as though they were individuals to circumvent electoral finance transparency laws where you have to declare anything over, for example, £500. Though electoral law does extend to this domain, we found the Electoral Commission has no means by which to compel PayPal to provide the necessary information to verify this. We need our relevant regulators to have appropriate futureproof powers. They must be able to gather the information they need. They must have the power to levy significant fines, and so these fines are not just seen as the price of doing business by big tech they must have the power to bring forward criminal sanction where there is clear evidence of wilful ongoing wrongdoing in the final analysis. I would like to finish by restating my thanks for the invitation to give evidence today. International cooperation is made even more imperative both by the multinational nature of some of these companies and also by the shared values of democratic countries. Their elections should be free, fair and transparent. That is why we established the International Grand Committee on Disinformation and ‘Fake News’ in November 2018, which brought together in Westminster parliamentarians from Ireland, France, Belgium, Latvia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Singapore. Since then we have met in Ottawa and Dublin in 2019, and heard from representatives from Germany, Estonia, Finland, Morocco, Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica, St Lucia, the United States and of course Australia. Though Mr Zuckerberg may think otherwise, it is not insignificant that we have brought together and worked on these issues with people from every inhabited continent on the planet. I note that Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Dorsey appeared before the US Congress and touted their progress in combating political disinformation. I think it is appropriate that the next grand committee meeting be held in Washington so they are held accountable for their company’s actions around the world. Thank you for your time. The CHAIR: Thank you. On that point about the next meeting, I understand that there was one that was due to be scheduled but was postponed due to COVID. Is that correct? Mr KNIGHT: Yes. The CHAIR: Obviously you are still waiting to find out what happens. There have been no discussions about when that might be because you are waiting to find out what happens post-COVID, obviously. Mr KNIGHT: Yes, and everyone’s countries have different experiences of what they can actually do. The CHAIR: Absolutely. No worries. I might throw to the Deputy Chair for the first question. Mrs McARTHUR: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Julian, for being prepared to speak to us. I am really concerned about two things that are arising in all this. One is anonymity and groups or individuals that can hide behind anonymity on social media and cause untold damage to individuals or other groups. We had some academics previously today suggest that this anonymity issue is vitally important and has to be maintained in social media, but surely it is not acceptable in mainstream media. No material is accepted unless a name and address is supplied, even if it is not used. Even when they are using witnesses that do need to remain anonymous they do have the detail and the information. This does not occur on social media. To me this is one of the main issues and problems in social media abuse of individuals and other groups. The second issue I want to raise is that political parties and candidates can by and large be regulated. They do have to authorise everything they put on social media or in the conventional mainstream media. Third parties are not so regulated, and sometimes not at all, and yet they can play a very important role in election campaigns, but the focus does not appear to be on the third parties as much as it is on political parties and political candidates. Would you like to comment, please? Mr KNIGHT: Yes, I have a lot of sympathies for what you are saying there. Particularly in terms of the first point in terms of anonymity, it is a free-for-all in many respects. Social media companies say they have got the terms and conditions, but as I think I noted, when we visited Washington for hearings in disinformation at the midpoint of our inquiry, actually Google spent more on free lunches than it did on invigilating its social media content and what have you, which is a really perverse situation.
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