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Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing
- andsoitis 3y ago> Canada demands Oh dear. The hypocrisy.
- surgicalcolor 3y agoPeople are resorting to sharing wildfire news info with screenshots because of the ban.
- 1over137 3y agoTheir facebook addiction is strong then. As they are not 'resorting' to using a means of communication other than facebook.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoInteresting. It makes me wonder what a government service that is comprised of public message boards would look like. Like NextDoor with city/county/state/federal tiers. It's easy to shoot that idea down, harder though to suggest an alternative that solves the problem of creating a public space not controlled by corporate/monied interests.
- entuno 3y agoHas the Canadian government exempted articles about the wildfires from fees? If not, they don't really have any right to complain that Facebook doesn't want to pay to share them. At the end of the day, they're a private company who are looking to make a profit, not an emergency broadcast system.
- hexo 3y agoNo, at the end of the day, they are SO BIG that they are more like a public place/space, where you cannot really dictate your own rules, even as a owner of such place (for example restaurants is some countries. cell phone network operators.). FB should really cut the bullshit.
- cowsup 3y ago> they are SO BIG that they are more like a public place/space, where you cannot really dictate your own rules The Canadian government disagrees. They think Facebook stands to have significant financial gain for the privilege of their users sharing Canadian news sites, to the point where Facebook has to pay a fee for that privilege. You can't simultaneously say "Facebook is a public place, people should be allowed to post whatever they want" and also "Facebook should have to pay a fee if they want their users to be able to post whatever they want."
- JKCalhoun 3y agoI don't see the quandary. FB has managed to make themselves a defacto public space, they should not however be allowed to extort that position.
- hotstickyballs 3y agoAnd yet the government extorts all similar public spaces
- JKCalhoun 3y agoThere's a bizarre trend I have seen in the past decades where "The Government" is being portrayed as the enemy — not as the construct we have created to represent the wishes and needs of the people and society. Corporations are portrayed as our saviors at best — or at worst, excused for doing whatever they need to to make their shareholders a return on their investments.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago"not as the construct we have created to represent the wishes and needs of the people and society." Does the government actually do that?
- 3y ago
- kennywinker 3y agoAs i understand it, the law that would require them to pay has not come into effect yet
- hotstickyballs 3y agoThe law exempting them from paying fees hasn’t even been drafted yet
- Verdex 3y agoI love rules. But they often get perverted into something terrible and ugly by people who only want to exert power over others. I love the first order effects. I love the second order effects. I love the weird edge cases. Then some power hungry sociopath comes into the room and belches "serve me" and vomits a rule onto the ground. It's clear they haven't thought about this any further than simply wanting the masses to bow down to them. Do they even know what rules are? While I am definitely sympathetic towards anyone who's business model is impacted by Facebook, and I think that the honorable thing for Facebook to do here is take the hit and let sharing of forest fire news, ultimately this is exactly what Canada (a sovereign country ruled by the people) wanted. This isn't some weird third order emergent property of their rule. They demanded something from Facebook and now they're getting it. If that makes them sad (to get exactly what they asked for) then it's kind of a personal issue.
- ChumpGPT 3y ago>ultimately this is exactly what Canada (a sovereign country ruled by the people) wanted I'm not a fan of Facebook but I totally support their position and what's even crazier now is that the CBC and others who pushed this are now asking the Canadian Gov to sue Facebook because of this. It's typical behavior of a Gov/Society that is protectionist.They cheered when Trudeau and Freeland made all the Telcos Canadian media companies to protect them from competition (American). Canadians typically cut their nose off to spite their face, there is a long list of everything from dairy, eggs, duty free allowances when crossing the border, etc that they vehemently supported during NAFTA II (because America sucks) that they now complain about. All I can say is enjoy the cost of your mobile rates, food prices, 1.80 CAD a liter for fuel. Just saying...
- ShrigmaMale 3y agoit's so freaking disingenuous when hyperregulatory twerps pass this kind of crap, then wait for a disaster, then soyface at facebook like "see what they're doing!! this is a critical natural disaster tool!" well then maybe yall shouldn't've broken the business model, geniuses. i neither use nor like facebook but this is an obvious mistake.
- dbingham 3y agoThe problem is that companies that successfully become monopolies like this - especially over critical public functions like communication - shouldn't be allowed to be private. At that point, they've made themselves utilities. But the free marketeers have such a grip on public policy here in North America that the governments aren't able to take the appropriate regulatory action: Either nationalize them and make them a utility or break up the monopoly so you don't have a behemoth with so much power over a critical function like communication.
- twoodfin 3y agoSorry, but the idea that Facebook, or even Meta generally, has a monopoly on communication is absurd on its face.
- dbingham 3y agoIt has a monopoly on certain forms of connection and communication. You could easily say the same thing about telephone companies, that it was "absurd" that they had a monopoly on communication - after all, people communicate in many other ways beyond the telephone: mail, face to face, telegram, and so forth. But we still treated the telephone companies as having a monopoly on a critical form of communication. And we took the appropriate steps: broke them up or treated them as utilities. Facebook has over 3 billion users. Nearly 40% of Earth's population. Many of whom communicate more actively through it than they do with telephones, mail, or any of the other forms of communication that we treat as public utilities. It absolutely fits the bill.
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- matheusmoreira 3y agoHere in Brazil they tried to sneak in similar provisions into a fake news law. They actually preempted Facebook's move by simply writing into law that social media companies have no right to block the links as retaliation.
- hotstickyballs 3y agoThen block users! Governments have nothing on tech talent and that’s their loss
- matheusmoreira 3y agoOh I wish FAANG would just rangeban my entire country due to the dictatorial politicians and judges. I bet WhatsApp alone could generate enough pressure to bring these people to their knees. I mean, Google posted a small link against the law in the search page and they hit them with a totally arbitrary $200k per hour fine for "abuse of market position" until they removed it. You'd think they wouldn't want to be in a country with literal power tripping supreme court judges ordering censorship left and right. The truth is of course they're making far too much money to give a shit and would rather obey and make slightly less money instead of leaving and making zero.
- gremlinunderway 3y agoJesus christ, can you suck the corporate teet any harder here? God forbid a corporate entity can't just run amok in a country and do whatever it wants.
- hirundo 3y agoWhere is Google News on this? Searching for "fire yellowknife" I see for example links to articles from the Toronto Star, CBC and Calgary Herald. Is Google paying for the privilege of displaying those links?
- prepend 3y agoThat’s just as stupid as Canada trying to force Facebook to pay news companies because users were sharing articles with each other. We’re in a “stupid, arbitrary rule” situation and users are finding workarounds. Canada’s law seems dumb to me. Yes, news companies make less money because of Facebook, but it’s users communicating. Should the postal service pay the newspapers if people start mailing people letters with newspaper clippings?
- kennywinker 3y agoNewspaper clippings via mail? That’s screenshots. You can take a screenshot and post it no problem. > Yes, news companies make less money because of Facebook Seems to me they don’t just “make less money”, it’s more like they “stop existing”.
- prepend 3y agoWhen they stop existing, that’s less money. What I mean is that the postal service provides a server, people mailing letters. Facebook’s service is people messaging each other. If people started sending links to each other in the mail and it kills newspapers, should the postal service pay? People message all sorts of stuff on Facebook. And it frequently causes companies to make less money and/or stop existing. That doesn’t mean Facebook should pay those companies to keep existing.
- kennywinker 3y agoOk so to make your postal service analogy accurate let’s add a detail: whenever you send a newspaper clipping the postal service opens the letter and inserts a piece of junkmail. Ok now imagine the gov passes a law saying “if you insert junkmail into a letter containing a newspaper clipping, you have to pay a fee to the newspaper”. Where’s the problem? Either they stop inserting ads, or they pay. As for “make less money” vs “stop existing” - having journalism exist is in the publics interest. If one business threatens to cause another to go out of business we might not care, but in this case the business is theoretically socially important.
- davikr 3y agoGood, this is a consequence of pure rent-seeking lobbying from big newspapers. > There have been 52 registered meetings with Ministers, MPs, and senior officials or roughly one meeting every four days since election day nearly 8 months ago. This represents an astonishing level of access and may help explain why the concerns of independent media and the broader public are missing from the bill. [1] [1]: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/04/how-did-news-media-canada/ https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/04/how-did-news-media-canad...
- kennywinker 3y agoFacebook wants to make money off selling ads next to other people’s content. News media wants to get paid for the content they pay to create. Who’s rent seeking again?
- catchnear4321 3y agoif information about disasters is “content,” then the correct answer is “everyone.”
- kennywinker 3y agoIt costs money to gather information, send reporters + photographers places, etc. rent seeking is wanting to be paid for no new work, not wanting to be paid for work that is in the public interest.
- three3 3y agoWell, Facebook already blocked sharing news, so... Where's the rent seeking?
- kennywinker 3y agoFb killed most of the previous forms of media that people would have turned to for this news. But now facebook will sell us the solution, but only if we don’t regulate them in any way. Sounds fair?
- TekMol 3y agoWhat is the legal situation right now in Canada? As far as I understand it, Canada made it illegal to link to Canadian news without payment? Is it allowed for Canadian newspapers to "sell" the right to link to their news for a price of 0?
- twoodfin 3y agoThe HN title has been undesirably editorialized. Current Reuters headline: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing
- ksaj 3y agoAmazing what greed can do. They want to make money from the news, yet they don't want to pay the news sources for letting them feed off of it. If a Canadian outfit wanted to host news and other media from the US, you know it wouldn't happen without payments in kind to the American news or media outlet.
- andsoitis 3y agoI'll assume you're writing in good faith, so I will try to explain why I think some are disagreeing with you. > Amazing what greed can do. They want to make money from the news, yet they don't want to pay the news sources for letting them feed off of it. The Canadian government has said that a law is going to come into effect that will ban a company like Facebook from allowing news links unless the news provider is compensated. Meta has started to put changes into effect to comply with the rules of the land. The Canadian government is now demanding that an arbitrary exemption is being made. How is a company meant to build systems with such whiplash reactionary legal framework? > If a Canadian outfit wanted to host news and other media from the US, you know it wouldn't happen without payments in kind to the American news or media outlet. > (Downvoting doesn't make it untrue. Same for the other posts this user is downvoting.) You are postulating.
- ksaj 3y agoI suppose the sites (except for CBC) could paywall. That would be the only recourse. And would actually solve the issue at hand in a lot cleaner and familiar way. The law change has both its support and detractors here, so wholesale downvoting without even commenting is counter to any real discussion. So I do appreciate your input for sure. I agree with your statement on Meta complying with what they were told to do, and not wanting to entertain an about-face when shortcomings in the law (before it is even passed!) show up. We also have Canadian Content Laws here that have an impact on how Canadian media is handled within our own borders. I would expect people who don't like that law to also not like this one - they both complicate things more than they were presumably meant to.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago> arbitrary exemption Public safety? As soon as you codify it into the law it is no longer arbitrary. Maybe arbitrarily enforced (down the road) but that is a different battle.
- benj111 3y agoWhat actually is the law? Is it just embedding an article? Hyperlinks? What? They can't be doing it with hyperlinks surely, or else that would break the web. Edit: it does apparently include links. But links go the newspapers website, who presumably can monetise how they like, so why would that be an issue?!?
- phyrex 3y agoThey very much didn’t want to ban it, they ALSO wanted to get paid for the social media links too. It just backfired on them.
- JimtheCoder 3y agoWhy doesn't the gov just use the Amber alert system to share essential info? Why do people even need to read articles on a forest fire. It's a...large fire. In the forest.
- thepasswordis 3y agoBecause sometimes the fire exits the forest and enters peoples homes.
- JimtheCoder 3y agoAnd that is why the gov should be using official government channels or Amber alert type systems to disseminate essential information. If a fire is getting close to my home, I want to learn this information from the appropriate authorities, including what actions need to be taken. Not from some journalist.
- pmontra 3y agoWas Facebook the main news channel in Canada? No TV, no radio? Where did Canadians got their news since the Facebook ban? Some countries have SMSes from the government and/or officials going around with loudspeakers. Maybe Canada has all of that and more. If not, I can hardly blame Facebook for the lack of coordination at state level.
- three3 3y ago[flagged]
- bdavbdav 3y agoIf only there were other places to get news other than Facebook. Who is this trying to target, people are well aware of the fires and actively seeking info. Not being able to stumble across it on Facebook doesn’t sound like that big of a deal.
- politician 3y agoIf it’s a public safety issue, then neither Facebook nor the newspapers should be able to make money off the information. Instead, the provincial government should prepare a website for the information and allow that to be shared. If there are additional costs involved in distribution then the government should provide reasonable subsidies.
- codetrotter 3y agoWhy is content from the news media needed for this? The Canadian government should find ways to produce public information about the fires, and find ways to distribute that. I am all for punishing Facebook in many ways. But if they want to use Facebook to publish public service info, don’t make demands that Facebook allow sharing articles from commercial news agencies. Make a deal with Facebook to have Facebook distribute government official information about the fires to peoples Facebook feeds.
- ksaj 3y agoI agree to some degree, but we sorta-kinda already have that. Canadians can go to CBC or any other Canadian news source for that information. A certain large demographic have learned to rely on social media for discourse, as they not only get the news, they can have threaded discussions about it. The law that Meta is complying with hasn't even passed yet. This is a clinch found in that upcoming law, so you'd hope that Meta would be willing to work around it if the ones implementing the law are willing to.
- speed_spread 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- clessg 3y agoAs a Canadian, trying to wrap my head around this whole kerfuffle reminds me of an old South Park episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWn3Sso2RE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWn3Sso2RE). Naturally. Slightly abbreviated: > So... What exactly does Canada want? > We want ... more ... moneh. [dramatic pause] > Yeah, more moneh! > More money from where? > How-how 'bout the Internet! The internet makes lots of moneh. So give us some of that moneh! > Yeah, give us internet moneh!
- hotstickyballs 3y agoUnfortunately the only expertise politicians understand is making money so hopefully meta starts seeing the value of lobbying
- redeux 3y ago> hopefully meta starts seeing the value of lobbying The implication that Meta doesn’t see the value of lobbying is hilarious. You can read their policy for “Meta Political Engagement”[1] and see that they are already quite invested and savvy in this area. 1. https://about.meta.com/facebook-political-engagement/ https://about.meta.com/facebook-political-engagement/
- LukeLambert 3y agoCan someone explain what it looks like from a user's perspective when an article is blocked? Is there an error message? Limited reach? Plain link instead of rich preview? If the publishers don't want their photo, headline, and first sentence or two appearing without payment as a rich preview on Facebook, well ok. I think it's a stretch, but I can at least see their perspective. It's worth noting that publishers are already in control of that preview with Open Graph tags. However, if they want to get paid for an unadorned <a> tag, that completely goes against the spirit of hypertext.
- phyrex 3y agoPeople in Canada can't view this content. Content from news publications can't be viewed in Canada in response to Canadian government legislation. https://www.terracestandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/33550270_web1_230817-TST-Meta-Blocks-The-Terrace-Standard_1-1200x798.jpg https://www.terracestandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/3...
- jszymborski 3y agoBoth the Gov't of Canada and Facebook will try to get you to believe there is a righteous side here, but believe me when I say that when it comes to this particular matter, both of these folks can fuck straight off. Excuse my Canadian French.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoArticle title is actually: Canada demands Meta lift news ban to allow wildfire info sharing
- rtbathula 3y agoLate to the party but Canada says "it's a reckless ban", not a reckless bill.