> For months, supporters of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, assured the government that Meta and Google were bluffing when they warned that a bill based on mand

> For months, supporters of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, assured the government that Meta and Google were bluffing when they warned that a bill based on mandated payments for links was unworkable and they would comply with it by removing links to news from their platforms. So its already moved from “Facebook removing news is bad and not going to happen as a consequence of this law” (the quote) to “the Canadian government’s ban on news is good for Canada ( the comments here). The intention was never to ban news. It was to take a cut. If they wanted to ban news that would have been the law. Regardless of whether you think the effect is good or not, the laws purpose has failed. It was a blunder.