\u201cPeople in Canada will no longer be able to view or share news content on Facebook and Instagram,\u201d says Meta in their official statement after starting to block the links to Canadian organizations\u2019s news content on June 1, 2023, in response to the government\u2019s news act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carmi Levy, a journalist and tech analyst, says that the government opened a \u201cPandora\u2019s Box\u201d by implementing Bill C-18 and causing other issues to threaten the Canadian media industry.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\u201cCanadian consumers are stuck in the crosshairs of the government\u2019s intent to level the playing field and force major technology platforms to pay their fair share. And now the companies are essentially threatening to take their ball and go home,\u201d Levy says. \u201cThat is a very dire position for Canada\u2019s media landscape to be in as they look for legitimate sources of information in the digital space. It means that Canadians won\u2019t have as easy or direct access to the critical content, they need to know what\u2019s going on and form their appropriate opinions, and it makes it much easier for them to be misinformed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem with Bill C-18 is Bill C-18.<\/p>Michael Geist<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18, became a stumbling block between the federal government and big digital platforms. The legislation was introduced and passed by the House of Commons in Ottawa a year ago but became one of the most discussed topics in the media industry after receiving the Royal Assent (the approval by the Sovereign of a bill that becomes an act of Parliament and part of the law in Canada) on June 22, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the federal government, the bill was introduced for only one purpose – to support news businesses by securing fair compensation when their media content is made available by dominant digital platforms such as Meta and Google. However, the legislature faced a backlash from the companies that decided to remove Canadian news in response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some experts weren’t surprised by the reaction of digital platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, says, \u201cThe problem with Bill C-18 is Bill C-18.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Geist says that the reaction of digital giants is understandable because Meta is not the one that publishes the news content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the case of publishing, newsrooms deserve compensation,\u201d he says. \u201cBut Meta doesn\u2019t post news, publishers do. And the fact that it [Bill C-18] sought to suggest that links were something that merited compensation is a deeply troubling principle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people might think that Canada is the first country to ask digital platforms to compensate news organizations. However, the precedent took place in Australia in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is a very dire position for Canada’s media landscape.<\/p>Carmi Levy<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The Australian government presented the policy initiative called the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code to force digital companies to pay Australian media outlets for using their content on the sites. After that, Meta protested the law by blocking news on its platforms across Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Levy, who covered the Australian case, says Meta and Google were \u201cdissatisfied\u201d with the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey fought it tooth and nail, including threatening to go dark in Australia and no longer carry content from the country\u2019s media producers,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd only at the absolute last minute, the Australian government agreed to make some fairly significant changes to the law to, basically, water it down and limit the financial exposure of the technology platforms.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result, Facebook and Google lifted the restrictions, and the law was passed with modifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the reasons why Canada couldn\u2019t follow the same Australian success is the difference between the media markets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think Australia is a more significant market than Canada. This is the home of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. There\u2019s more money,\u201d says Brett Caraway, a professor of Digital Media at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n\n\n Moreover, the overall news market doesn\u2019t have a significant value for digital companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe news has never been so important to Meta or Google because that\u2019s a very small market \u2013 a small slice. If we\u2019re talking about Canadian journalism, it\u2019s a little teeny tiny slice,\u201d says Brett Caraway, a professor of Digital Media at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think we need to look at Instagram, Facebook, and Google uniquely. Having Canadian source media content go dark on Instagram was more of an inconvenience than anything else because let\u2019s face it – we all use Instagram for pretty pictures and videos. We don\u2019t use Instagram to discover or surface media content. No one goes to Instagram for news. I say that as a technologist,\u201d Levy explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google warned that Canadian news content will go dark in December 2023 and in the eleventh hour the government of Canada managed to make a deal with Google on November 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Government agreed to discuss the possibility of addressing some of the most critical issues, which we welcomed,\u201d says Kent Walker, Google\u2019s president of Global Affairs, in the official statement. \u201cIn that discussion, we asked for clarity on financial expectations platforms face for simply linking to news, as well as a specific, viable path towards exemption based on our programs to support news and our commercial agreements with publishers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the biggest technical platforms agreed to pay $100 million a year to Canadian news organizations based on the number of full-time journalists they employ. Also, Google will continue to make training and other resources available to Canadian news organizations on top of its annual cash injection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we’re talking about Canadian journalism, it’s a teeny tiny slice.<\/p>Brett Caraway<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n However, Geist thinks that many Canadian media outlets will end up with less funding than they had before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s some new money but it\u2019s pretty small for the scope of the sector,\u201d he says. \u201cGoogle was already spending millions of dollars on deals with some of the large publishers such as the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail and those deals will disappear. They\u2019re left to get a share of a relatively small pot considering how widely it will be distributed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At press time, Meta didn\u2019t comment on the deal yet continuing to erase Canadian content on its platforms. Convergence Magazine attempted to reach out to Meta for comment but received no response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMeta has now blocked news links for months in Canada indicating that there haven\u2019t been any negative effects from an economic perspective. So it doesn\u2019t seem likely that they\u2019d be willing to pay very much for news links,\u201d Geist says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also says that Bill C-18 doesn\u2019t exist anymore in the form it had been introduced before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn striking the deal with Google, one of the most notable aspects is that the government has largely tossed aside all the core principles that were critical in the law itself,\u201d he says. \u201cThe law was supposed to be about the government simply facilitating negotiations between platforms and media companies with no direct involvement. Instead, what we\u2019ve left with is the government literally negotiating the actual amount to be paid and even intervening in how that money will be allocated. So it\u2019s a completely different law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carey French, a professor of media law at Humber College, thinks that there is still time and place to sit down at the negotiating table and address the issues caused by Bill C-18.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cIt seems to me it\u2019s something that could be solved by sitting down and Some experts says they are surprised by Canadians\u2019 unawareness of the potential threat Bill C-18 may cause to the access to verified information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, Abacus Data commissioned by Google Canada, surveyed to find out the extent of Canadians\u2019 awareness of Bill C-18. They found out that 33% of respondents are \u201csomewhat familiar\u201d with the bill and only 8% of Canadian adults are \u201cvery familiar.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the legislation\u2019s requirements, only 21% of Canadians believe that a social media platform should be required to pay the news organization for sharing a link. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMost ordinary citizens find anything to do with tech legislation to be as boring as watching water evaporate,\u201d Levy says. \u201cThey don\u2019t understand how that really colours their lives and they don\u2019t want to take the time to learn. As a result, it opens the door for a lot of really bad policy decisions because the population has shown they don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the recent examples that shows the growth of the ongoing disinformation due to the elimination of Canadian news content was The Beaverton<\/em>, the popular news satire website, which was briefly put under Meta\u2019s restrictions due to an automated classification based on metadata. A few days later, the situation was resolved after consultations with the site\u2019s founder. However, that raises another concern – the blockage of news could result in the growth of fake news content among Canadian consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe absence of these legitimate sources will only create a vacuum into which more misinformation would flow,\u201d Levy says. \u201cIt would fundamentally change how our entire audience consumes content and finds news articles and interacts with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite reaching the agreement, Google still shares its concerns over the legislature that will be in effect by December 19, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe hope that the Government will be able to outline a viable path forward. Otherwise, we remain concerned that Bill C-18 will make it harder for Canadians to find news online, make it harder for journalists to reach their audiences, and reduce valuable free web traffic to Canadian publishers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Levy added that Canadians should pay more attention to the changes in the media space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe entire health of the Canadian media ecosystem hinges on this. And they\u2019re [Canadians] only going to realize it after it\u2019s too late after they\u2019ve lost access to the voices that used to inform them. And then, they will shrug their shoulders and won\u2019t even realize that they could have been part of the solution that wasn\u2019t,\u201d Levy says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Threat to Canadian Journalism By Angelina Kochatovska \u201cPeople in Canada will no longer be able to view or share news content on Facebook and Instagram,\u201d says Meta in their official statement after starting to block the links to Canadian organizations\u2019s news content on June 1, 2023, in response to the government\u2019s news act. Carmi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[353,1],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802.jpg",1125,841,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-170x120.jpg",160,113,true],"medium":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-300x224.jpg",300,224,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-768x574.jpg",696,520,true],"large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-1024x765.jpg",696,520,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802.jpg",1125,841,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802.jpg",1125,841,false],"td_150x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-150x112.jpg",150,112,true],"td_218x150":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-218x150.jpg",218,150,true],"td_300x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-300x224.jpg",300,224,true],"td_324x400":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-324x400.jpg",324,400,true],"td_485x360":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-485x360.jpg",485,360,true],"td_696x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-696x520.jpg",696,520,true],"td_1068x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802-1068x798.jpg",1068,798,true],"td_1920x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/IMG_0802.jpg",1125,841,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"convergencemag","author_link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/author\/convergencemag\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A Threat to Canadian Journalism By Angelina Kochatovska \u201cPeople in Canada will no longer be able to view or share news content on Facebook and Instagram,\u201d says Meta in their official statement after starting to block the links to Canadian organizations\u2019s news content on June 1, 2023, in response to the government\u2019s news act. Carmi…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4840,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828\/revisions\/4840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/vpms1.humber.smartmanagedservers.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/12\/Michael-Geist_Personal-Website.jpeg\")
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having a reasonable discussion without actually giving up the farm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n