4 ms·

Didn't Canada try this in 2023? > Online News Act (Bill C-18) in June 2023. The law was designed to make large digital platforms compensate Canadian news organ

by bko 2mo ago

Didn't Canada try this in 2023? > Online News Act (Bill C-18) in June 2023. The law was designed to make large digital platforms compensate Canadian news organizations when news content was made available through their services. It created a bargaining/arbitration framework rather than literally setting a per-link tax. > So beginning in August 2023, Meta blocked news on both Facebook and Instagram in Canada. Canadians could no longer view or share links/content from Canadian or foreign news organizations on those platforms... As of 2026, the Canadian government still describes Meta as blocking news sharing on Facebook and Instagram Pretty much the worst result for everyone. Newspapers get less traffic, can't use social media even if they wanted to. Inconvenience to users. Meta mostly unaffected, maybe some marginal loss in time spent on the platform. These kinds of things eventually just face reality. Meta and Google know very well how much these things are worth to them in terms of marginal revenue or network value. And the answer is not what publishers want to hear.

dmix 2mo ago
Correct, I remember my dad complaining he can't share Toronto Star articles on Facebook because they block you from posting them. Same with Instagram. https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/05/the-behind-the-scenes-bill-c-18-battle-how-newspapers-big-broadcasters-and-the-cbc-are-trying-to-seize-control-over-how-google-money-is-allocated-to-canadian-media/ https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/05/the-behind-the-scenes-bi...
jmclnx 2mo ago
>Newspapers get less traffic, can't use social media even if they wanted to Newspapers want to sell subscriptions for their local area, on paper or on their WEB site. I would say getting clicks from non-subscribers has no value for them.
- pj_mukh 2mo ago
  What’s the top of the funnel for getting subscriptions?
  - Arnt 2mo ago
    Finding the right people. A small subset of the general audience. Trying to get your word in front of all eyeballs in the hope of hitting the right ones at the right time is a hopeful strategy, not a well-considered one.
- bell-cot 2mo ago
  > I would say getting clicks from non-subscribers has no value for them. So the newspaper gets no revenue when non-subscribers view (and perhaps click) ads on the newspaper's web site? TIL, I guess...
antiloper 2mo ago
The article doesn't link to the text of the law, but from what the article says the law will make it mandatory for Facebook to enter into agreements with news outlets, whether they want to or not (otherwise they'll be ""fined"" millions of AUD)
- graeme 2mo ago
  That is what the Canadian law said. This was "if Meta is showing news content". Contrary to the law's assumption, news is worth hardly anything to Meta, so they just stopped showing it. Does the Australian law really say: 1. You must show news, even if you don't want to 2. You must pay to do so 3. The rate will be determined by negotiation with the people you are paying 4. You cannot say no to them in aggregate I have my doubts, but if it does I still doubt it will get the results the govt wants. The problem is news is not valuable to Meta.
  - rpdillon 2mo ago
    Yeah, the way it's being discussed, it does seem like the law is trying to impose those four restrictions. But that seems like compelled speech...I know too little about Australian law, but that seems like a bad precedent, in the sense that government is now forcing private entities to publish news from sites they specify and pay for the privilege. It's not quite state media, but it adjacent to it.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
    - consensus1 2mo ago
      The incentives are horrible. Piss off the government and you won't be included in the pool of sites that are eligible for shakedown money. Piss off Google / Meta and they will throw you out in the cold and make a deal with another site in the pool.
  - roenxi 2mo ago
    The Australian government has probably learned from the Canadians and set the law up so the tax is more successful. Recall that the government has the power to levy unfair taxes and handouts in principle, so it doesn't matter all that much that their claimed reasoning is silly. This looks to be equivalent to a social media tax and an Australian news handout, just bundled together for rhetorical purposes (and with a bizarre negotiating element in a welfare transfer that really just looks like beating around the bush to me).
roryirvine 2mo ago
So the reality they must face is that the social media giants will try to circumvent regulation. Fine. And the most reasonable response to that is therefore to implement some form of general anti-avoidance rule, of the sort that's used in, for example, tax, company, and employment law. For instance, you could say that if a social media company were to change its behaviour to avoid a law of this sort then they should incur a charge equivalent to, say, 10% of its global revenue. That ought to make compliance with the law the more attractive option. There's no reason to be defeatist about this - social media companies are not and should not be above the law.
- realusername 2mo ago
  This is not "circumventing regulation" here but nullifying the argument the newspapers had for bringing the law in the first place. They argued that Meta needs them for exposure and that's why they should pay, apparently it's not true and they don't need them.
- roenxi 2mo ago
  That is similar to saying someone who refrains from murdering random strangers is circumventing the law that would send them to prison if they did. Not triggering this sort of law is a totally acceptable response and there is no reason for anti-avoidance measures. The basic deal here is is if social media propagates the news then they must pay the news companies. Banning the news companies is reasonable. If they don't want to pay then they can disassociate from the news sites. Frankly it would be a win for everyone. I don't know why anyone is reading Australian news media in the first place, the information density is low.
- rpdillon 2mo ago
  The law says that they have to compensate the news organizations when links to those news articles are shared on their platform. They are completely in compliance with the law because they're preventing those links from being shared on the platform. This is in no way circumventing regulation. It's following it, the same way Anthropic is following copyright law by shredding books after they scan them. They're just doing what the courts said. What I don't get is when people make rules with a particular outcome in mind, but don't reason through the incentives the rule creates. For what it's worth, I'm thrilled that you can't post news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada. The fewer people that visit those platforms, the better!
rstuart4133 2mo ago
Canada copied Australia - we did it first in 2021. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448241232296 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448241232296 This is just an extension to 2021. The pigs have come back. They want more gravy.

by bko 2mo ago

dmix 2mo ago

Correct, I remember my dad complaining he can't share Toronto Star articles on Facebook because they block you from posting them. Same with Instagram. https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/05/the-behind-the-scenes-bill-c-18-battle-how-newspapers-big-broadcasters-and-the-cbc-are-trying-to-seize-control-over-how-google-money-is-allocated-to-canadian-media/ https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/05/the-behind-the-scenes-bi...

jmclnx 2mo ago

>Newspapers get less traffic, can't use social media even if they wanted to Newspapers want to sell subscriptions for their local area, on paper or on their WEB site. I would say getting clicks from non-subscribers has no value for them.

pj_mukh 2mo ago
What’s the top of the funnel for getting subscriptions?
- Arnt 2mo ago
  Finding the right people. A small subset of the general audience. Trying to get your word in front of all eyeballs in the hope of hitting the right ones at the right time is a hopeful strategy, not a well-considered one.
bell-cot 2mo ago
> I would say getting clicks from non-subscribers has no value for them. So the newspaper gets no revenue when non-subscribers view (and perhaps click) ads on the newspaper's web site? TIL, I guess...

antiloper 2mo ago

The article doesn't link to the text of the law, but from what the article says the law will make it mandatory for Facebook to enter into agreements with news outlets, whether they want to or not (otherwise they'll be ""fined"" millions of AUD)

graeme 2mo ago
That is what the Canadian law said. This was "if Meta is showing news content". Contrary to the law's assumption, news is worth hardly anything to Meta, so they just stopped showing it. Does the Australian law really say: 1. You must show news, even if you don't want to 2. You must pay to do so 3. The rate will be determined by negotiation with the people you are paying 4. You cannot say no to them in aggregate I have my doubts, but if it does I still doubt it will get the results the govt wants. The problem is news is not valuable to Meta.
- rpdillon 2mo ago
  Yeah, the way it's being discussed, it does seem like the law is trying to impose those four restrictions. But that seems like compelled speech...I know too little about Australian law, but that seems like a bad precedent, in the sense that government is now forcing private entities to publish news from sites they specify and pay for the privilege. It's not quite state media, but it adjacent to it.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - consensus1 2mo ago
    The incentives are horrible. Piss off the government and you won't be included in the pool of sites that are eligible for shakedown money. Piss off Google / Meta and they will throw you out in the cold and make a deal with another site in the pool.
- roenxi 2mo ago
  The Australian government has probably learned from the Canadians and set the law up so the tax is more successful. Recall that the government has the power to levy unfair taxes and handouts in principle, so it doesn't matter all that much that their claimed reasoning is silly. This looks to be equivalent to a social media tax and an Australian news handout, just bundled together for rhetorical purposes (and with a bizarre negotiating element in a welfare transfer that really just looks like beating around the bush to me).

roryirvine 2mo ago

So the reality they must face is that the social media giants will try to circumvent regulation. Fine. And the most reasonable response to that is therefore to implement some form of general anti-avoidance rule, of the sort that's used in, for example, tax, company, and employment law. For instance, you could say that if a social media company were to change its behaviour to avoid a law of this sort then they should incur a charge equivalent to, say, 10% of its global revenue. That ought to make compliance with the law the more attractive option. There's no reason to be defeatist about this - social media companies are not and should not be above the law.

realusername 2mo ago
This is not "circumventing regulation" here but nullifying the argument the newspapers had for bringing the law in the first place. They argued that Meta needs them for exposure and that's why they should pay, apparently it's not true and they don't need them.
roenxi 2mo ago
That is similar to saying someone who refrains from murdering random strangers is circumventing the law that would send them to prison if they did. Not triggering this sort of law is a totally acceptable response and there is no reason for anti-avoidance measures. The basic deal here is is if social media propagates the news then they must pay the news companies. Banning the news companies is reasonable. If they don't want to pay then they can disassociate from the news sites. Frankly it would be a win for everyone. I don't know why anyone is reading Australian news media in the first place, the information density is low.
rpdillon 2mo ago
The law says that they have to compensate the news organizations when links to those news articles are shared on their platform. They are completely in compliance with the law because they're preventing those links from being shared on the platform. This is in no way circumventing regulation. It's following it, the same way Anthropic is following copyright law by shredding books after they scan them. They're just doing what the courts said. What I don't get is when people make rules with a particular outcome in mind, but don't reason through the incentives the rule creates. For what it's worth, I'm thrilled that you can't post news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada. The fewer people that visit those platforms, the better!

rstuart4133 2mo ago

Canada copied Australia - we did it first in 2021. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448241232296 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448241232296 This is just an extension to 2021. The pigs have come back. They want more gravy.