On the same day that the Liberal government’s Bill C-18 received royal assent and passed into law, U.S. tech giant Meta announced it would be blocking content from news outlets for Canadian users in order to comply with the new legislation.
However, Meta said on June 22, the day the Online News Act received royal assent, that it had noted beforehand that it would need to completely drop news sharing in Canada by outlets, publishers, and broadcasters on its platforms in order to comply with act.
“As the Minister of Canadian Heritage has said, how we choose to comply with the legislation is a business decision we must make, and we have made our choice.”
Blocking News
Both Meta and Google had already begun test-blocking some news for Canadian users prior to Bill C-18 passing into law.The move sparked outrage from MPs on the Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, who grilled Google executives on the matter during an appearance on March 10.
At the time, Google Canada’s Vice President Sabrina Geremia did not admit the tech giant was blocking any news in Canada, but voiced Google’s strong opposition to Bill C-18.
“It also incentivizes the creation of cheap, clickbait content over quality journalism,” she said.
Cabinet has heavily criticized Meta’s decision, saying the move shows the platforms are more willing to remove news than pay local outlets for it.
Rodriguez’s department held meetings with both Facebook and Google this past week, but didn’t disclose any details.
Rodriguez also rejected an amendment to Bill C-18 proposed by the Senate before it passed that would have aimed to prevent tech giants from blocking news for Canadian readers on their platforms.
Local Journalism
Rodriguez also said in the House on June 20 that Canada needs the Online News Act in order to save local newsrooms forced to close in recent years due to heavy online competition.However, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux has said the Online News Act will benefit legacy media more than local journalism—a point Geremia also raised during her committee testimony.
He also wrote that he expects developing and implementing the act will cost around $5.6 million per year over five years for the Canadian Heritage Department and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Opposition Criticism
While the NDP and Bloc Quebecois have been mostly supportive of Bill C-18, the Conservatives were heavily critical of the legislation prior to its passage.“The gist is that small independent news providers should have a chance to compete with the big fish and earn their fair share of revenue in a free market. That is fair enough as a concept, but when we dig deeper, we find that this piece of legislation is deeply flawed, and it would not accomplish the stated goal.”
The legislation will give the CRTC the responsibility of ensuring that tech giants reach licensing agreements with news outlets for sharing their content on their platforms, but Lantsman said small media outlets will not benefit from these deals.
Rather, she said the “established groups that can afford the high-priced lawyers and can curry favour with the CRTC” will benefit the most in striking these deals.
“These big media groups might have the ability to negotiate with Facebook or even the federal government,” Lantsman said. “Small mom-and-pop shops find themselves in a very different position.”
