Midweek podcast: The fight against fake news
Fake news and the spread of misinformation have infiltrated social media — and experts still aren't quite sure how to tackle it.
Starting in July, Facebook is expected to bring in a team of fact-checkers to Canada to look at links and posts on the platform in order to weed out fake news.
It might look promising, but one expert says there are still many unanswered questions.
"Nationally, there needs to be a conversation about what should be common standards," Fenwick McKelvey, a digital media policy expert from Concordia University, told The House.
He explained governments, academics and the industry itself are all grappling with how to measure and mitigate the impact of misinformation online.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly what misinformation looks like, as it ranges from the seemingly harmless memes to the downright overt jabs.
This week, for instance, a tweet from a "parody" account pretending to be Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced a 'national beaver week.'
Meanwhile, an American fact-checking website, ran an article disputing a meme saying that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had disparaged American farmers. Two weeks ago, Snopes also felt it necessary to fact-check a claim about Trudeau's left eyebrow.
Facebook's plan to examine content posted to their site is a good step, though more is needed, McKelvey said.
"It seem to be that if Facebook know that there's sources that are fake or false, it might be able to change its algorithm to limit the spread."
McKelvey said there also need to be conversations about privacy — as Facebook itself was caught up in a privacy breach scandal this spring.
These issues raise as many new questions as they do solutions to known problems.
Individuals can combat the spread of false information by increasing their media literacy, he suggested.
"The internet has changed a lot," he concluded.
Trade, equalization, tax rate top of mind after finance ministers' meeting
Saskatchewan's finance minister says her province fears an all-out trade war with the United States could deal a huge blow to its economy.
Donna Harpauer told The House she supports the federal government's decision to strike back against U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, and she made that clear at the meeting of Canada's finance ministers in Ottawa on Tuesday.
"We're very trade dependent," she said, adding that the hit to the Saskatchewan economy from a protracted trade war "would be in the billions of dollars."
Though she backs Ottawa's strategy, she said a few of the provincial ministers around the table Tuesday warned federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau that the counter-tariffs imposed in response to the American ones could have "unintended consequences" for Canadians because a lot of Canadian and American manufactured goods cross the border many times before reaching an end market.
Harpauer also said there was a lot of talk at the meeting about adjusting the corporate tax rate to bring it closer to the U.S. level.
"We were very, very competitive, and now we're not," she said.
Morneau seemed "very interested" in that idea, she added.
Another hot topic at the meeting issue discussed on Tuesday was equalization.
Another hot topic at the meeting issue discussed on Tuesday was equalization.
The federal government has been under fire in recent days for renewing the existing equalization formula for another five years despite strong objections from some provinces. The extension kicks in next year.
Equalization, which is based on a highly complex calculation, is designed to help poorer provincial governments provide public services that are reasonably comparable to those in other provinces.
Saskatchewan has expressed displeasure with the federal government's methods for calculating equalization payments and its government has suggested an alternative plan.
Harpauer said her government thinks that if the current equalization methods aren't re-thought, provincial programs and services will take the hit.
With files from the Canadian Press