Canadian parliamentarians joined six other nations today to sign a ceremonial declaration on Internet guidelines. File Photo

In an attempt to fight the online disinformation and “fake news” that threatens democracies worldwide, Canadian parliamentarians joined six other nations today to sign a ceremonial declaration on Internet guidelines.

The International Principles for the Law Governing the Internet, as it was dubbed by the inter-parliamentary group, is the formal product of the committee’s hearings in London.

Canada’s signatory, Conservative MP and chair of the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee, Bob Zimmer, is joined in Westminster by his fellow committee members, Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith and NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus.

Twenty-four members representing nine international parliaments took part in hearings throughout the day. Zimmer’s counterparts from Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, Latvia, Singapore and the U.K. each signed the declaration of laws governing the Internet.

The agreement’s principles are not legally binding, but serve to put Big Tech on notice. The seven signatories made five declarations, including:

“i. The Internet is global and law relating to it must derive from globally agreed principles;

ii. The deliberate spreading of disinformation and division is a credible threat to the continuation and growth of democracy and a civilizing global dialogue;

iii. Global technology firms must recognize their great power and demonstrate their readiness to accept their great responsibility as holders of influence;

iv. Social media companies should be legally liable to act against known sources of harmful and misleading content on their platforms, and should be regulated to ensure they comply with this requirement;

v. Technology companies must demonstrate their accountability to users by making themselves fully answerable to national legislatures and other organs of representative democracy.”

A draft of the agreement was provided to iPolitics by staff of one of the Canadian committee members:

Central to the committee’s discussions is the role Facebook plays in spreading disinformation. The committee had hoped the social media network’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, would appear to testify, as he did to the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the European Parliament earlier this year, but he refused multiple invitations.

The committee didn’t take the rejection lightly, despite Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice-president of policy solutions, appearing in Zuckerberg’s place for several hours of questioning.

9 countries.

24 official representatives.

447 million people represented. One question: where is Mark Zuckerberg? pic.twitter.com/BK3KrKvQf3 — Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (@CommonsCMS) November 27, 2018

Allan was grilled by the committee about the role Facebook played in propagating disinformation and fake news online.

Zuckerberg has been called to testify in front of a number of elected bodies since it was revealed earlier this year that data firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested millions of users’ Facebook data for political use without their consent.

The breach led Canada’s privacy and ethics committee to study the matter. Zuckerberg also rejected an invitation to testify before that committee. The privacy and ethics committee’s second report on the matter is expected to be tabled soon.

Facebook has also admitted its services were manipulated during the 2016 U.S. election, the Brexit campaign, and during the crisis in Myanmar.

On the eve of American Thanksgiving last week, Facebook acknowledged it had hired a lobbying company to push negative stories about the company’s critics, including smears of philanthropist George Soros.

Kevin Chan, Facebook’s head of public policy in Canada, appeared as a witness at Canada’s House Industry, Science and Technology Committee on Monday. Chan’s spokesperson told iPolitics the executive would not answer questions about today’s meetings in London.

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