CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) & Bill C-18

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Since they're private companies, can we "compel" them to unblock Canadian news content?
Smells like that’s the way they want the wind to blow….
News Media Canada, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and CBC/Radio-Canada want the Competition Bureau “to use its investigative and prosecutorial tools to protect competition and prohibit Meta from continuing to block Canadians’ access to news content.”
“To use its investigative & prosecutorial tools to….”
So, get the Competition Bureau to FORCE Meta & Google to post news from Canadian News Services, & get the Liberal/NDP’s to FORCE Meta & Google through C-18 to pay for the privilege of being FORCED to pay for being FORCED to post news from Canadian News Services. Hmmm….why would Meta & Google have an issue with that???
Makes Canada sound like a place you’d want to do business with, doesn’t it? I wonder what this looks like from the outside looking in?
 

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
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A group of news publishers and broadcasters has asked the Competition Bureau to investigate Meta’s move to block Canadian news content from Facebook and Instagram.

News Media Canada, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and CBC/Radio-Canada want the Competition Bureau “to use its investigative and prosecutorial tools to protect competition and prohibit Meta from continuing to block Canadians’ access to news content.”

So, get the Competition Bureau to FORCE Meta & Google to post news from Canadian News Services, & get the Liberal/NDP’s to FORCE Meta & Google through C-18 to pay for the privilege of being FORCED to pay for being FORCED to post news from Canadian News Services. Hmmm….why would Meta & Google have an issue with that???

The company began blocking news on its platforms last week in response to the Liberal government’s Online News Act. The law would FORCE Meta and Google to reach commercial deals with news publishers to share revenues for news stories that appear on their platforms.

Removing news from its platforms would mean Meta would no longer be subject to the legislation. Rest at link, etc…

In a press release Tuesday morning, the news publishers accused Meta of abusing its dominant market position.

“Meta’s practices are clearly designed to discipline Canadian news companies, prevent them from participating in and accessing the advertising market, and significantly reduce their visibility to Canadians on social media channels,” they said. “Meta’s anticompetitive conduct, which has attracted the attention of regulators around the world, will strengthen its already dominant position in advertising and social media distribution and harm Canadian journalism.”

They said Meta “effectively has substantial control over access to Canadian news” because Facebook and Instagram combined hold more than 70 per cent of the social media market in Canada.

In their letter to Competition commissioner Matthew Boswell, they said Meta has chosen to harm news organizations, and that its actions threaten the viability of the news industry in Canada.

“Its exclusionary and disciplinary conduct is aimed at preventing or severely limiting Canadian news organizations’ access to a significant portion of their audiences and significantly reducing visits to their news websites and applications,” the news publishers argued. “Through the loss of this critical distribution channel, Canadian news organizations’ ability to earn online advertising revenue from their websites and applications, as well as from their readers, becomes significantly diminished.”

The groups are asking the Competition Bureau to prioritize their “urgent” request.
Seems the lamestream media is attempting to use the courts to force fakebook and others to pony up the money turdOWE promised them.
 
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Taxslave2

House Member
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Smells like that’s the way they want the wind to blow….

“To use its investigative & prosecutorial tools to….”

Makes Canada sound like a place you’d want to do business with, doesn’t it? I wonder what this looks like from the outside looking in?
About the same as it looks to us. turdOWE promised his tame media money for nothing, and now they want it delivered.
As my wife pointed out, the social media companies are private platforms, and they can block whatever they want. Don't like it? Go somewhere else.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Smells like that’s the way they want the wind to blow….

“To use its investigative & prosecutorial tools to….”

Makes Canada sound like a place you’d want to do business with, doesn’t it? I wonder what this looks like from the outside looking in?
French ads in SK must be dirt cheap. One could break into a market of 10s of people.

Ads in Punjabi, Tagalog and once again Ukrainian would get thousands of customers in a hurry but....French!
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
24,418
8,746
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
Seems the lamestream media is attempting to use the courts to force fakebook and others to pony up the money turdOWE promised them.
Forcing them to carry content & then Forcing them to pay for being Forced to carry that content. That’s the way I’m reading it. Sounds….not right…to me.
About the same as it looks to us. turdOWE promised his tame media money for nothing, and now they want it delivered.
As my wife pointed out, the social media companies are private platforms, and they can block whatever they want. Don't like it? Go somewhere else.
Well, makes you wonder what powers that this Competition Bureau has then, doesn’t it?

Are you and Dixie Cup a couple? If so, I never picked up on that…& if not, then it’s a just a coincidence. 😉
 
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petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Seems the lamestream media is attempting to use the courts to force fakebook and others to pony up the money turdOWE promised them.
About the same as it looks to us. turdOWE promised his tame media money for nothing, and now they want it delivered.
As my wife pointed out, the social media companies are private platforms, and they can block whatever they want. Don't like it? Go somewhere else.
Its more than just blocking if Im seeing a 20% French ad content on one of the platforms. Who is funding that? It can't be Le Maison Depot.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
24,418
8,746
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Regina, Saskatchewan
On July 5, cabinet announced it was pulling all government advertising from Facebook and Instagram, worth $11.4 million a year, after Meta said it was ending news access on its platform following the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which forces online publishers to share some advertising revenue for linking to Canadian news.

The company “refused to discuss and they did not want to compensate the media accordingly and so we’ve decided to suspend advertising,” Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said last month.

Well, here’s Meta discussing it I guess.

Meta Platforms records show MPs Iqwinder Gaheer (Mississauga-Malton, Ont.), Wayne Long (Saint John-Rothesay), Ryan Turnbull (Whitby, Ont.) and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, Ont.) also paid for Facebook ads since the ban, but spent under $200 each.

The boycott hasn’t extended to the Liberal Party. It spent $7,206 on Facebook ads since the ban was announced.

Since the 2019 federal election, the party has spent a total of $4.3 million.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
110,878
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Low Earth Orbit
On July 5, cabinet announced it was pulling all government advertising from Facebook and Instagram, worth $11.4 million a year, after Meta said it was ending news access on its platform following the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which forces online publishers to share some advertising revenue for linking to Canadian news.

The company “refused to discuss and they did not want to compensate the media accordingly and so we’ve decided to suspend advertising,” Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said last month.

Well, here’s Meta discussing it I guess.

Meta Platforms records show MPs Iqwinder Gaheer (Mississauga-Malton, Ont.), Wayne Long (Saint John-Rothesay), Ryan Turnbull (Whitby, Ont.) and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, Ont.) also paid for Facebook ads since the ban, but spent under $200 each.

The boycott hasn’t extended to the Liberal Party. It spent $7,206 on Facebook ads since the ban was announced.

Since the 2019 federal election, the party has spent a total of $4.3 million.
How did French ads end up on English YouTube?
 

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
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Its more than just blocking if Im seeing a 20% French ad content on one of the platforms. Who is funding that? It can't be Le Maison Depot.
Any french adds I see on fascistbook , i mark as spam or offensive.
I'm wondering just how the lamestream news would feel if FB just cancelled all accounts in Canada? Would they demand the government force FB to make their platform available to Canadians, and pay everyone to have an account? Or will they demand the government force everyone to pay for news we don't get? Much like the handouts are now, only bigger.
 
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Tecumsehsbones

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Any french adds I see on fascistbook , i mark as spam or offensive.
I'm wondering just how the lamestream news would feel if FB just cancelled all accounts in Canada? Would they demand the government force FB to make their platform available to Canadians, and pay everyone to have an account? Or will they demand the government force everyone to pay for news we don't get? Much like the handouts are now, only bigger.
Do other languages scare you too? Just curious.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
24,418
8,746
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
Though Meta's block of news availability on the social media giant's platforms is already taking its toll on web traffic to news sites, local media outlets aren't united on a path forward.

Just over two weeks ago, Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — began ending the availability of news on those sites in Canada in response to the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which takes effect by the end of this year.

The government says C-18 is about ensuring tech companies pay their "fair share" to media organizations. Meta has countered that the only reasonable way to comply with the bill is to end news access in Canada.

The standoff between the federal government and Meta has dragged on for much longer than the temporary block that the company put in place in Australia in 2021, after that country passed a similar law.

That's no coincidence, said Sue Gardner, a digital policy analyst.

"Since then, they've had a couple years to think about it," Gardner, who used to run CBC's digital site and the organization that operates Wikipedia, said on The House. "They've had a couple of years to sort of look at their operations and see what kind of role news plays in it.

"And they've had a couple of years to imagine what happens if this kind of law comes into effect all around the world. It's one thing to pay out a couple $100 million in Australia. It would be something very different to pay out many, many multiples of that in countries around the world."

Gardner dubbed C-18 an "epic miscalculation" by the government, saying she was concerned the bill is "not going to help the country. It's actually going to make things worse for the news industry and for news audiences."

The government has positioned itself as a global leader on the issue, saying in a statement, "The world is watching Canada."

But Gardner warned that Canada might find itself as a cautionary tale, rather than a trailblazer. This sounds and feels so familiar, like our Carbon Tax flagellation…

"Other countries are watching what is happening in Canada, but rather than considering Canada to be a role model that they might follow, I think it's encouraging them ... to step back and maybe take a different approach."

The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta lift a "reckless" ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country.

Meta started blocking news on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all users in Canada this month in response to a new law requiring internet giants to pay for news articles.

Meta blocked Canadian news on its social media sites earlier this month in response to federal legislation – Bill C-18– which requires ‘some’ (meaning two) tech giants to pay for news content shared or repurposed on their platforms. Meta is Facebook’s parent company and formerly bore the same name as the social media platform.

Bill C-18 is not yet in effect, though it was passed in the House of Commons, St-Onge said. That means Meta is not yet on the hook to pay for any Canadian news posted to its sites. The company, alongside other tech giants, media companies and members of the public, will be invited to weigh in on any regulations resulting from the bill.

Quite often, solving one problem creates another.

It’s the law of unintended consequences.

One unintended consequence of Bill C-18 may be that financially struggling news outlets — large and small — will lose all of the traffic that comes from facebook and google, reducing the value of their online advertising. That defeats the stated purpose of the law, which is to help news outlets make money.

Another is that if all the real journalism is deleted from those platforms, what’s left? The last thing any of us should want is to make even more room for nonsense and lies… even if it’s free.

In its present form, Bill C-18 doesn’t seem to be the right solution to the problems facing the news business.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
24,418
8,746
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
I don't suppose y'all ever considered keeping hands off and letting the market decide?

Oh, right, socialists. . .
"Other countries are watching what is happening in Canada, but rather than considering Canada to be a role model that they might follow, I think it's encouraging them ... to step back and maybe take a different approach."
Canada as a cautionary tale for other nations….even for other socialists, this time on Bill C-18. At least some good is coming from the last 8 years.