Release C-18, move to the news fund to prevent Google and Meta from blocking news

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Liberals can solve ongoing impasse with Meta and Google by making Big Tech platforms pay a fund for news organizations, says Konrad von Finckenstein

Published 01 July 2023 Last updated 5 hours ago 3 minute read

The then president of the CRTC Konrad von Finckenstein in 2011. Photo by Andr Forget/Postmedia/File Content of the article

OTTAWA The Liberal government can solve the ongoing impasse with Meta and Google by suspending implementation of its Online News Act and making Big Tech platforms pay a fund for news organizations, says former CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein.

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Meta and Google said they will pull news from their platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Google Search, in response to Bill C-18, which became law in late June.

The idea behind the move to the bottom model, which would be run by industry and not the government, is that it would address the main issues that Meta and Google have said they have with the Online News Act. Those are that it actually does them. paying for online hookups and exposing them to unlimited liability.

As long as you can establish that you did, in fact, receive money from Google and Facebook, and you’re paying with newspapers and therefore remain viable, I don’t think anyone will care what mechanism you use, von Finckenstein said.

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I don’t see why Google and Facebook wouldn’t do it.

Meta and Google said they will pull news from their platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Google Search, in response to Bill C-18.

That legislation would force the two companies to enter into commercial deals with news publishers to share revenues for the news that appears on their platforms (Postmedia, publisher of the National Post, supports the legislation).

Fight between tech giants and Ottawa over news payment could globally impact Google to block news from search, other products in Canada in response to federal Online News Act

The bill covers Big Tech companies designed to specifically acquire Google and Meta that make news content available to people in Canada. If Meta and Google block news links from their platforms, they will no longer be subject to the legislation.

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Von Finckenstein said the bill was based on an erroneous premise that Google and Meta benefit from news links posted on their platforms, when in fact, it is the news channel that benefits. But Google and Meta benefit from the data they glean from news content, von Finckenstein said in a recent article co-authored with Peter Menzies, who was previously a vice president of the CRTC and editor of the Calgary Herald before that.

Menzies stressed in an interview that the fund would give Meta and Google certainty about how much they could be expected to pay, which is one of the main concerns they have expressed about the current bill. And, unlike the Online News Act waiver, there would be no way for companies to avoid it.

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Meta said there was no compromise solution under the current bill and he was no longer negotiating with the government. While Google initially entered last-minute talks with Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, the company said Thursday those talks were unsuccessful in addressing its concerns.

Menzies said the companies could be persuaded to compromise a news fund, provided the contribution is reasonable. If you find it commercially sensible, you can.

I don’t think any of the companies really want to take on the dark lord type of character in this drama and I don’t think the government is particularly keen on taking on the bumbling clown character. So both, I think, are motivated to find something reasonable.

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Supriya Dwivedi, director of policy and engagement at McGill University’s Center for Media, Technology and Democracy, agreed that both sides probably want a compromise. I expect both sides, both the government and the platforms, want a fix to this because I can’t imagine, for either platform, they like the optics of being seen doing this sort of thing in a country like Canada .

But Dwivedi noted that there’s nothing stopping companies from setting up a fund right now. All they have to do is make it transparent and inclusive and align it with the exemption criteria enumerated in C-18. They could very well do it themselves and comply with C-18.

He said the government should not back down or withdraw completely, as that would set a terrible precedent.

Simply for the message it sends not only to other companies but also to other countries, which are drafting similar legislation.

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