Yahoo News Canada’s CBC On European Charm Offensive To Rally Support For Social Media Detox Initiative
EXCLUSIVE: Catherine Tait, who runs Canadian pubcaster CBC/Radio-Canada, has been meeting with counterparts in Europe this week to rally support for an online initiative aimed at detoxifying social media.
Tait revealed she has over the past week held meetings with the likes of BBC Director General Tim Davie and senior France Télévisions and Radio France executives to discuss the Public Spaces Incubator, which is backed by four public service broadcast organizations and MoveOn.org director and Avaaz founder Eli Pariser.
More from Deadline
'Strike' Star Tom Burke Requested BBC Media Training To Prepare For J.K. Rowling Trans Questions
BBC News Presenter Apologizes To Nigel Farage On Air For "Inflammatory Language" Accusation
Regarding discussions with broadcaster counterparts, a spokeswoman said the BBC does not comment on “private meetings,” but added the corporation would meet with other public service broadcasters “to discuss their work.” France Télévisions hadn’t responded to requests for comment before press time.
These meetings followed CBC discussions with public service media counterparts in Australia and New Zealand, among other territories.
The Public Spaces Incubator is aimed at “redefining and reclaiming” conversational zones and audience engagement on social media. “We established this with the idea that public broadcasters have lost their direct connection to the public with the advent of social media,” said Tait. “That was the problem statement.”
The initiative’s goal is to find solutions to online problems, and more that 100 open-source prototype products and features have been developed through multi-million dollar research. Focus groups have been providing feedback and a final round of testing beginning on June 24. The ambition is for each partner making some of the products live by the end of 2024.
CBC/Radio-Canada, RTBF in Belgium, SRG SSR in Switzerland and ZDF Germany teamed with Eli Pariser’s New York-based non-profit tech incubator New_ Public to establish the open source incubator three years ago, but Tait is now hoping to get buy-in from other major European pubcasters as the initiative moves towards full launch.
The partners, who met in Berlin on Monday, had been quietly working on the project for three years before going public with their plan earlier this year. The next phase of the project launches in October, when many of the world’s public service broadcasters meet in Ottawa for the annual Public Broadcasters International event. CBC is attempting to drum up support — and secure new financing — ahead of that deadline.
“The purpose of the second round is to expand the family, so we have the broadest possible impact,” Tait told Deadline in an exclusive interview in London. “My hope is we re-secure the support of the founders, and one or two others. We’ve been talking to Australia, New Zealand and France, and we’re in the UK meeting the BBC as well.”
Strained relationships
Just as discourse online has deteriorated over the past decade, the relationship between social media giants and PSBs has, ironically, become more strained. Notably, Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram blocked all news content in Canada last year ahead of a new law that would have forced it to pay news organizations for their content. Meta said the decision was made due to the content driving very little traffic.
“By using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to reach audiences, with all the good intentions, we are in a sense outsourcing our conversations,” said Tait. “In the case of Canada, when Facebook blocked us, we found ourselves in a very tricky situation in that we lost that direct relationship. Meanwhile, moderation on our own platforms has become extraordinarily expensive because of the requirement to literally manage a toxic conversation or disagreeable comments in a bespoke manner. How do we create a public space that is safe again? By combining efforts, we’ve created what I think is the first ever ‘co-production’ in the digital space.”
Tait has been critical of Facebook and other major social media platforms over the years, saying in 2021 that they bare “a large share of responsibility for amplifying and emboldening voices of hate” online. This week, she told Deadline that many groups, including women and people of color, had reduced their participation in online debate due to the vitriol, but the Public Spaces Incubator offered an alternative.
In essence, the partners believe they can “reverse” the negative cycle in many online spaces and detoxify the worst of them. They say this can be achieved by larger and more diverse groups of people being amplified over the extreme views and behaviors that are often seen on social media platforms. “It’s a little like being in a public park — when someone litters, the others say, ‘You can’t do that, we’re trying to have a picnic here,'” said Tait. “By having a positive group experience, you crowd out the negative.”
Using “beyond-binary” features such as a ‘Comments Slider’ that favor, for example, scales over the common upvote/downvote and like/dislike systems, would in theory allow for more nuance positions and better, more democratic debate to occur. Watch a video here.
Research has gone into whether AI can act as an auto-moderater, while another prototype in development gives journalists the tools to identify what views are missing from a debate.
We can reveal the cost of the research and development is in the “multiple millions” range, according to a source. “Public broadcasters are all under extreme financial pressure,” said Tait. “It’s hard enough trying to deliver entertainment and news, feeding the beast, so this was an opportunity for this group that if we all chipped in a bit of funding we could really make something work. It’s been a unique collaborative experience.”
Pariser — whose New_ Public is taking a key role in the venture by providing design, development and production capabilities — co-founded global citizen organization Avaaz and mission-driven media biz Upworthy, which is designed to make civically-minded ideas popular.
Best of Deadline
'Knives Out 3': Everything We Know About The Second Rian Johnson Sequel
2024 Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
