facebook could be forced to ban sharing news in Canada. At its center is a bill that, modeled on what has been done in Australia, would force social networks to pay publishers a fee every time their content is distributed.
Meta states that the Canadian legislator misunderstood the relationship between social networking and publishing. “It is not true – the company writes in a note – that Facebook is taking an undue advantage from the distribution of newspaper content.” The debate creates an inevitable sense of déjà vu: Meta’s objections are much the same as those that emerged when the Australian Parliament debated a law with a very similar purport (subsequently passed, with no major bias to Meta’s finances).
As has already happened in Australia (and to a lesser extent in Europe),Online News Act it would force Facebook and Google to share a small portion of their revenue with publishers. The legislator argues that platforms derive some of their profits (in a sense) from ‘parasitizing’ the content of newspapers, which are taken over by users or by aggregation services such as Google News.
True, but it would be naive not to see these kinds of proposals for what they are: a kind of compensation for the enormous disadvantages that social networks, and more generally the web, create for the traditional model of large-group news distribution. editorial. Newspaper sales – and with it the budgets of publishers – have been declining sharply worldwide for several years now. Social media, which has bombarded readers with millions of free information content that they weren’t used to paying for information, is at least partially involved.
A law like the Online News Act could inject new liquidity into publishers’ coffers, ensuring the survival of traditional media. Whether we then (as done by the Canadian legislature, and even earlier by the Australian) we want to use a different kind of rhetoric, such as fig leaf, is another matter.
We may need to consider blocking news sharing on Facebook if the Online News Act discussed by Canadian legislatures goes into effect.
reads a press release from Meta.
In the past, both Meta and Google had threatened to shut down some of their services, including news distribution, as a form of response to the passing of laws similar to the ONA. But it never happened.
In Australia, for example, Facebook had actually blocked users’ news sharing, but only for a limited period of time and as a negotiating tool to get some amendments passed that softened the final bill. Even Google had discussed the possibility of blocking Google News in Australia, eventually signing an agreement with some of the major Australian media outlets. It is suspected that even in Canada it will end exactly like this: the law will come and Meta will have to deal with it.
Source: Lega Nerd
