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> governments want to avoid doing the actual hard thing which is convincing taxpayers that this should be part of what we support through broad based support as
by notatoad 3y ago
> governments want to avoid doing the actual hard thing which is convincing taxpayers that this should be part of what we support through broad based support as societies.
I think it’s a level beyond that, to the point that I’d just call it pure corruption. A government-mandated fee that a company has to pay isn’t any different than a tax. They’re taxing big tech, which is fine, and most people wouldn’t have a problem with that.
But then instead of booking that as revenue and deciding what to do with the money as part of the normal budgetary process, they’re short-circuiting procedure to send that money to news companies. If the government wants to fund news companies, it should be done in the normal way that all the other government funding gets decided upon, not in a special allocation just for news companies that is excluded from the federal budget.
- philistine 3y agoNews companies are always interacting with politicians, always criticizing the government. The logic is to distance as much as possible the monetary help from the government. So you don’t have the appearance of collusion. Media companies themselves want it that way.
- notatoad 3y agoi'm not sure if you're trying to back up my point or disagree, but yeah. they're trying to hide the money as much as possible. that's why it's so bad. it is collusion, so if there's no appearance of it that's a problem. if the government is going to be paying the media to report on them, that needs to happen in the open.
- philistine 3y agoYou think a law that forces tech companies to sign deals with Canadian media companies is more problematic than taxation and a check with the country’s flag on it? I beg to differ. Media companies need as much hands-off from the government as possible.