Canada, B.C. legislation would tackle harmful online services: Facebook whistleblower

A woman who blew the whistle about Facebook ignoring potential harms to users of the social media platform says proposed laws by Canada and B.C. have promise to hold tech companies to account for profiting off harmful content. 

Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, says big tech companies such as Facebook's parent company Meta need to be held accountable for the harms their products cause while profiting at handsome margins of up to 30 per cent. 

Haugen, who testified before the U.S. Congress in 2021 about Facebook's refusal to mitigate harmful content in favour of profit, says American government lawsuits were "transformative" in revealing information about societal impacts of harmful online content. 

She says B.C. crafted the law using information brought to light in U.S. lawsuits, and she looks forward to seeing how the province will use it. 

Haugen says B.C. "pioneered" legislation about non-consensual nude images, for example, and online harm bills being passed by the federal and provincial governments can be used to determine "the societal harms to kids" caused by addictive technology products. 

Haugen, who was in Australia and made available to media by the B.C. government on Friday, says places around the world are dealing with harmful content affecting children, and it's "accelerating so fast the public resources to cope with them are not keeping up." 

The B.C. government has introduced proposed legislation to recover health-related costs from alleged "wrongdoers," including social media giants.

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma introduced the bill Thursday, saying if it passes, it will allow the province to use the courts for recovery of health-related costs associated with the promotion and distribution of products that are harmful.

Premier David Eby said the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery Act is modelled on the province's legislation allowing it to sue for recovery of health-related tobacco and opioid damage costs. 

The legislation will provide the opportunity for the government to take social media companies to court for harms their algorithms cause people, especially children, Sharma said.

"It continues on B.C.'s leadership role on holding companies [accountable for] committing a wrong that society has to pay the cost for. And we pay that through our health-care bills," she told Amy Bell, guest host of CBC's On The Coast.

Sharma said the government's Intimate Images Protection Act, which created new legal mechanisms to stop the non-consensual online distribution of intimate images, has already seen significant uptake since it came into force two months ago.

She said there have already been 60 people accessing victim services resources after their images were distributed without consent. 

"So that's 60 people that might have had a different outcome later on," Sharma said.

She said it was up to governments to determine when social media companies had crossed the line and harmed the public.

"That's the type of conversations we want to have with social media companies or other companies that are operating in B.C.," she said. "We're trying to make sure we have all the tools to do that."