With a certain degree of poetic license, I am continuing to use lyrics from Joni Mitchell’s Circle Game as the title of my year-end wrap-up. Add 50 to the title to get a more realistic picture of where I am at.

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him take your time it won’t be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

No. I am not ready to slow those circles down. There still seems to be so much to get done.

This past year has been somewhat challenging, so in many ways I will be happy to turn the page in the calendar. Aside: Will my grandkids understand that metaphor? Our family is particularly grateful for the miracles enabled and delivered to us over the past year thanks to pharmaceutical and medical research. At the same time, we are deeply pained by horrors of the terrorist attack of October 7, and the global rise of overt antisemitism.

I have family in the Middle East. It is disturbing to see the number of people who seem uninformed, or misinformed about what triggered the war. And, that provides an appropriate segue to one of the main themes of this year-end post.

Improved access to quality information is the presumptive raison d’être for Canada’s Online News Act, Bill C-18. While I understand the motivation behind the legislation, as I have written, its implementation was badly fumbled.

Unfortunately, I am concerned that this is another case of government focus on the supply side without consideration of factors impacting demand. With all the best funding in the world to create better news, are we doing enough work to ensure there is a market to consume that news? Just as I have frequently complained about our work on broadband, we seem to be better at stimulating supply, and rely upon a Field of Dreams hope for the demand side. What if you build it and they don’t come? There are a number of ways to improve funding for news, but how does that help deliver quality information to a generation who don’t watch linear TV, and don’t pick up a newspaper, or rely upon news websites?

What do we do if we provide funding to create high quality local and national newsrooms, but a generation of consumers rely on 30-second high-energy video clips where adherence to facts isn’t valued as highly as the entertainment quality by the search algorithms?

Will digital literacy training in elementary and secondary schools include teaching how to differentiate between information, misinformation, and disinformation? How can we create more sophisticated consumers of high quality content?

Dealing with supply side issues is relatively easy. In most cases, if you throw enough money at the problem, it gets solved, whether it is building broadband, funding newsrooms, creating quality Canadian media content. Dealing with the demand side is much more challenging. What do we do when Canada’s universal broadband objectives are met, but more than a million people remain off-line? The issue of driving increased adoption will need to be a carry-over from my 2023 agenda into next year.

Being well informed is an important prerequisite for responsible leaders. Helping you stay informed is one of the reasons I added 98 blog posts to “Telecom Trends” over the course of 2023, continuing to write around 2 posts per week. There are more than 3260 posts in the archives (fully searchable). In 2023, I migrated my weekly newsletter to a new platform. You can subscribe here.

As I have said in the past, it is my objective for this blog to be a source of quality information on Canadian telecom policy, with occasional gastronomical diversions. In each case, I am trying to share elements of my expertise accumulated over decades.

I look forward to engaging with you in the New Year, readying for yet another spring and summer.

I wish you and your families a happy, healthy, safe and peaceful holiday season.

Last week, the UK communications regulator, Ofcom, released the 2023 edition of its annual Online Nation report [pdf, 4.3MB].

The report is described as “an overview of the UK online landscape in 2023, exploring children’s and adults’ use of and experiences on online services.”

Online Nation represents a snapshot of UK online use from May 2023 and compares trends to data collected in May 2022 (previous years reports are also available from Ofcom).

47.9 million UK adults accessed the internet on smartphones, tablets and computers in May 2023, spending an average of 3 hours 41 minutes a day online, eight minutes more than in May 2022. Young adults continue to spend the most time online, with 18-24-year-olds spending a daily average of 4 hours 36 minutes, and the 65+ group spending the least time (2 hours 46 minutes).

I am always interested in broadband adoption data. The latest Ofcom report shows that 93% of UK individuals over the age of 16 have home internet. Of those without home internet, “a perceived lack of need or interest” was the top reason expressed by nearly two thirds (65%). Cost related reasons were given by a quarter of the respondents. This aligns with similar findings from Pew for the United States. That price isn’t the biggest inhibitor for broadband adoption in Canada was the subject of a blog post of mine in 2021.

Adoption rates vary by age, with 18% of those aged 65 or older without home internet, but only 2% of those aged 25-34. Only 2% of households with children reported not having home internet. Of the 7% of UK residents over the age of 16 without home internet, 71% said they were unlikely to get internet in the next 12 months.

According to Statistics Canada, 94% of Canadian households had home internet in 2022. (The Statistics Canada Telecommunications portal has other useful links)

The report is 106 pages with a wealth of information. In addition, Ofcom has an interactive version of the data.

Early in 2023, I wrote, “Hopefully, 2023 will begin to bring better research into understanding those factors inhibiting broadband adoption among different groups in order to develop appropriate responses.”

It remains fertile ground for academic research in the year ahead.

Would more sophisticated content consumers help Canada avoid the need to implement online harms restrictions?

In early 2022, I described Finland’s approach, teaching school kids how to process information online, including checking and verifying “news” and “facts” being shared on social media. As the Daily Telegraph wrote at the time, “Teaching and learning about media literacy and critical thinking is a life-long journey. It starts at kindergartens and continues at elementary schools, high schools and universities”.

While the Canadian government has been under pressure to introduce its long-promised Online Harms bill, I continue to wonder if more effort should be focused on teaching critical thinking skills in Canada.

I am doubtful that the government should be in the business of determining what content should be blocked. This current government is not qualified to block information that it judges to be “misinformation”; as I pointed out in late October, the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of Innovation all circulated incorrect information that inflamed antisemitism. How can this government judge others’ content, when their own information has been harmful.

I am not a fan of technology specific legislation. At the same time, it is reasonable to expect that content that is considered illegal in print media should continue to be considered illegal in digital form.

It is extremely challenging to try to block content that is determined to be harmful. Blocking the content in one location will simply create an incentive for the content to emerge somewhere else. It becomes a never ending game of whack-a-mole.

In a recent article on The Hub, Richard Stursberg calls for “the news industry to decouple from social media”, saying “Much of social media is a sewer, polluted with content that claims to be true but is, in fact, disinformation and fake news.” The article claims that credible news gets judged by the company it is keeping on social media, compromising Canadians’ confidence, resulting in less trust for traditional news.

Under the circumstances, the best course might be for the news industry to simply leave social media. It could then set up its own platform, access to which would only be granted to firms that subscribed to a tough code of journalistic ethics like those in place for the CBC, the Globe and Mail, and CTV.

I am not as confident as the author that “It would be a simple matter to set up such a platform.”

Instead, what if we try to develop a society filled with more sophisticated content consumers? Can we create a series of school curricula, from kindergarten through university, to improve digital and media literacy and develop critical thinking?

Such a project would be a long term investment.

The Oxford Internet Institute recently released a study of nearly 12,000 children in the United States, that found no evidence that screen time impacted their brain function or well-being. The abstract for the full study said there were two hypotheses being tested: that functional brain organization is related to digital screen engagement; and, that children with higher rates of engagement will have functional brain organization profiles related to maladaptive functioning. “Results did not support either of these predictions for [screen media activity].”

While some schools boards have been considering whether to remove screens from classrooms, I wonder if a better approach is to focus on programs that teach improved digital literacy skills, learning how to differentiate between good information and bad, and helping kids become more informed consumers of digital content.

Can such programs help innoculate Canadians against a wide variety of online harms, including online hate, fraud, misinformation and disinformation?

Creating more sophisticated content consumers will require a longer time horizon with more patience required to implement, but will it deliver a better outcome than trying to legislate government controls on freedoms of expression?

Is it possible that ISED got it right? As Canada’s 3800 MHz auction closed yesterday, it appears that ISED’s use of “caps” (as contrasted with spectrum set-asides) may have contributed to an auction that kept prices internationally competitive.

The total money raised in the auction was $2.16B, far below the Bay Street financial analysts expected range of $4B – $10B. The average cost per Mhz-pop was $0.29, more than 60% lower than Scotiabank’s pre-auction estimate of $0.70. As I wrote earlier this week, the $0.29 is in line with Australia’s recent auction which worked out to C$0.26 per MHz-pop.

Recall that only 2 years ago, the 3500 MHz auction raised $8.9B, with an average cost of $3.28 per MHz-pop.

With significantly higher costs of capital, financial analysts were expecting bidding to be lower, but the results came in significantly lower than expected. BMO Capital Markets called it “A much more disciplined auction.” Scotiabank said “Finally a spectrum auction that does not break the bank”. TD Securities said, “In short, we are delighted with the outcome of the auction. Each of Rogers, Bell, TELUS, and Quebecor spent materially less than what we and the Street had expected in this mid-band auction.” A note from National Bank credits the cross-band spectrum cap and more available spectrum.

The lower spectrum cost means carriers will be in a better position to invest in physical infrastructure.

A number of carriers released statements last night:

• Bell: Bell secures the most 5G+ spectrum nationwide with acquisition of 3800 MHz licenses
• Cogeco: 3800 MHz spectrum auction: Cogeco acquires 99 licenses in Québec and Ontario
• Rogers: Rogers Acquires 3800 MHz 5G Spectrum Across Canada
• Sasktel: SaskTel invests $10.2 million to acquire 3800 MHz wireless spectrum as part of its mission to deliver advanced 5G connectivity to customers across Saskatchewan
• TELUS: TELUS secures critically important 3800 MHz spectrum licences, unleashing the full potential of 5G
• Videotron: 3800 MHz wireless spectrum auction – Quebecor and Videotron invest nearly $300 million to move forward with Canadian expansion

Reading these, we might conclude that ISED got it right.

In any case, remember, there is a free webinar from the International Telecommunications Society next Thursday (December 7): “Optimizing spectrum auctions”. See you there!

Bronwyn Howell recently wrote an article entitled “AI-Generated Content, Fake News and Credible Signals” for AEIdeas that I found to be particularly insightful.

It has been a couple months since I wrote “Emerging technology policy” and I think that the AEI paper presents some good perspectives.

She writes about the potential for people to be misled by AI-generated content due to what she terms information asymmetry. “Exploiting information asymmetries is not new. Snake oil salesmen and the advertising industry have long been “economical with the truth” to persuade gullible consumers to buy their products.”

In a digital world, consumers of AI-generated content do not necessarily know “whether the content they consume is a factual representation or a digital creation or manipulation, but the publisher does.” Regulations requiring content generated by AI to be labeled as such are intended to help overcome the information asymmetry.

Sometimes, no harm comes from the consumer not knowing. For example, if I am not told the aliens in a sci-fi movie are computer-generated, I am unlikely to be harmed; indeed, my enjoyment may be reduced if I am reminded of this before the movie starts, or if the information is emblazoned across the screen when the aliens are in action. But sometimes harm does come from the consumer not knowing—for example, when a video shows a politician saying or doing things that they did not. Yet even here, it is not clear or straightforward. If someone is lampooning a politician for entertainment purposes, then labelling is likely unnecessary (and even potentially harmful if it detracts from the entertainment experience). But if it is an election advertisement, and the intention is to convince voters that the portrayed events are factual and not fictional, then the asymmetry is material.

Potential harms may not arise from how the content was created, but rather from the intent behind its use. If the content is intended to deceive the consumer, regardless of how the content was created, then we need to examine ways to protect the public.

It may not be sufficient to require labelling of content generated by AI. It can be too easy to lie about its origins, and indeed, labelling may not be necessary if no harm ensues. Instead, the article suggests that regulatory “controls are required for the subset of transactions in which harm may occur from fake content.” She uses the example of election advertising, where rules already exist in most jurisdictions. “This suggests electoral law, not AI controls, are the best place to start managing the risks for this application”.

Do we need technology specific legislation and regulation? Or, do we ensure that existing protections for conventional technologies can apply in the world of artificial intelligence generating content?

An article on ABC News earlier this week says, “The war in Gaza is highlighting the latest advances in artificial intelligence as a way to spread fake images and disinformation”.

The risk that AI and social media could be used to spread lies to U.S. voters has alarmed lawmakers from both parties in Washington. At a recent hearing on the dangers of deepfake technology, U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, said the U.S. must invest in funding the development of AI tools designed to counter other AI.

A paper [pdf, 300KB] released earlier this week by Joshua Gans of the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto asks “Can Socially-Minded Governance Control the AGI Beast?”. Spoiler alert: he concludes (robustly) that it cannot.