this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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As much as Meta shouldn't be relied on for news, Canada creating legislation which stops Meta showing news then crying when Meta doesn't show news is frankly laughable and I don't know how their government didn't see it coming
Lol Meta has some good PR. The government did not stop Meta from sharing news. They stopped them from profiting off someone else's work without paying for it. Meta was told they had to start paying and decided to stop showing it entirely.
The Government telling meta and Google they'd have to pay to link has led to this entirely predictable result, and the companies said they would block links since very early on in the process. Independent experts (e.g., Michael Geist) also said that C18 was a bad idea.
It's ridiculous to complain about someone complying with laws that you (the government) drafted and passed.
The laws aren’t even in effect now. They pulled it as a bargaining chip like they did in Australia. They could show wildfire news for free right now and choose not to.
I don't really fault them for getting their filtering/blocking systems setup and tested ahead of time before they are liable, considering the estimated cost of $329.2 million per year between Google and Meta:
https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2223-017-M--cost-estimate-bill-c-18-online-news-act--estimation-couts-lies-projet-loi-c-18-loi-nouvelles-ligne
They didn’t have to pay to link — they had to pay to publish. As in, links are fine, adding a summary based on the content of that link is not.
That said, C18 was definitely a bad idea, and Meta spun it to their advantage.
Considering the undue influence Meta had over WHICH news people saw, I think Meta made the right choice.
And ~~Twitter~~ X - shame on them for requiring login to search for emergency hashtags. But nobody’s talking about that one.
From the text of the bill: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent
(b) sounds like just linking or indexing it would count as making it available, and thus require payment.
That seems to be backed up by at least a couple of the news sites: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-bill-c18-online-news-law-explained/
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/online-streaming-news-bills-whats-next