That Mr. Trudeau has been waxing lyrical about the iniquities of Google and, particularly, Meta (Facebook), in the aftermath of the government's recently-passed Online News Act, and the response of the social media giant to block Canadian news content, particularly during a national emergency like the current wildfire scare. "Facebook is putting corporate profits ahead of people's safety", he says, which is perhaps a bit of a stretch.
The Act attempts to force the likes of Google and Facebook to pay Canadian news outlets for the privilege of sharing the news content with their many millions for subscribers. In response, Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram have already started pulling Canadian news content from their platform - which is what Trudeau has been railing against - and Google seems likely to follow. Audiences can, of course, still access Canadian news directly by going directly to news sites themselves, but the lazy types that like Facebook to do the leg-work for them will be disappointed.
It kind of sounds reasonable at first blush: maybe Canadian newspapers, TV stations, etc, and their journalists, should be compensated for the content they produce. And many news outlets are in strong agreement: why should Meta et al profit from their (the news outlets') hard work? They claim that the new law will help level the playing field in the fierce competition for advertising dollars against the tech giants (80% of digital ad revenue goes to Google and Facebook between them). And they do have a point.
But not everyone is in favour of it, and even some smaller news concerns, the very ones expected to suffer most from the predations of Big Social Media, are strongly against. It's interesting to listen to their arguments.
One such critic of the new law is the CEO of Village Media, Jeff Elgie. Village Media runs 25 Community News websites, with titles like Soo Today, Elliot Lake Today and Northern Ontario Business. So, you might call Elgie a big little guy. And he has been against the law from the start.
Elgie argues that the law is predicated on the flawed notion that the social media giants "steal" content from Canadian news outlets. He says he has always been more than happy to get his content on Facebook and Google, which provides links back to his sites, and that he gets about 50% of his traffic that way. Losing access to those platforms will make it very difficult for concerns like his to survive, and certainly to expand into new communities. He argues that media sites actually benefit from the free traffic that the social media platforms generate.
Another small publisher, Paul MacNeill of Island Press Ltd, which publishes several community newspapers in Prince Edward Island, both in print and online, says that his company's website traffic is down by about a quarter since the start of the Meta block, and that it is now very difficult to amplify his publications' work beyond their rural PEI base. That said, though, MacNeill does believe that something like the Online News Act is indeed needed, and that letting the likes of Facebook bully their way forward is not a good solution.
So, it's a tricky and nuanced issue. As the government says, "The world is watching Canada", which is very true. Australia went through all this before Canada, including a brief block of Australian news content. But there, Google and Meta decided to suck it up, strike a deal, and pay out enough money to resolve the impasse. They are clearly not willing to go down that route with Canada (and every other country that follows). Canada needs to make sure it does not become a cautionary tale rather than a role model.
No comments:
Post a Comment