Strongly agreed. I think a lot of commenters in this thread are getting derailed by their feelings towards Meta. This is truly a dumb, dumb law and it's extremely embarrassing that it even passed.
It's not just Meta. No company wants to comply with this poorly thought out law, written by people who apparently have no idea how the internet works.
I think most of the people in the comments cheering this on haven't read the bill. It requires them to pay news sites to link to the news site. Which is utterly insane. Linking to news sites is a win win. It means Facebook or Google gets to show relevant content and the news site gets users. This bill is going to hurt Canadian news sites because sites like Google and Facebook will avoid linking to them.
Right. It’s like if I stand at a street corner telling people to try out a local restaurant. And then the local restaurant says that I should be charged to recommend them. It makes no sense.
The preview Facebook or whoever is providing is the content the site literally explicitly provided for the purpose of linking to their website. It's like the restaurant gave you a stack of flyers then tried to charge you for handing them out.
They'll do a really empty stub I think, but all the fancy previews are tags sites add that are basically "when you link to me, could you show me like this?"
But where I see a small nugget of good intent in this law is in the fact that I'd be willing to wager a very large percentage of people read the blurb on Facebook, which summarizes the entire story, and never click over to the actual article, thereby robbing the news site of ad revenue.
This isn't (supposed to) be about paying to post links. It's about paying to summarize their content so that users don't have to leave Facebook.
People aren't seeing the forest for the trees here. Yeah, nobody likes Meta, but the larger impact of Bill C18 will be that sources like Google and other large aggregators will stop allowing links to legitimate news sources, and instead be flooded by blogspam and misinformation.
People won't suddenly be navigating to The Toronto Star when they don't get news on the latest updates in say the Corona virus in their immediate Google results, they'll just continue to click on through to whatever sketchy source manages to SEO their way to the top instead.
This is a problem that the "legitimate news sources" created and they will need to ask to remove the laws they asked for in the first place if they want their viewership to come back.
Oh no. Millions of users are going to have to get their news from off facebook! What facebook stuff they do see is going to require they actually click through and view the website instead of reading a blurb and a headline so the site gets its deserved page views.
Well, they won't be able to get their news from "news outlets" specifically linked on Facebook. They will still be able to get their news from other sources on Facebook.
Not sure if that's actually an improvement though.
Canadians won’t be getting their news from Facebook. Hopefully, it will drive people to actual news sites or aggregators where they can click and read the news and be informed.
It makes no word of for profit / non profit, it defines the intermediary posting links as basically anything more popular than the news outlet they are linking to and gives the media outlets all sorts of power to complain and escalate if they think linking is unfair.
<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">Application
</span><span style="color:#323232;">6 This Act applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to the following factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">(a) the size of the intermediary or the operator;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">(b) whether the market for the intermediary gives the operator a strategic advantage over news businesses; and
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">(c) whether the intermediary occupies a prominent market position.
</span>
Are you making money personally by posting media links on Lemmy?
No.
This is 100% about billionaire anti-democracy bad actors having control over what people see. And profiting by doing so.
It’s UNBELIEVABLE how zillionaires Zuckerberg and Google have managed to convince people that their own crappy behaviors are all to blame on the Liberal Canadian government. It didn’t have to be this way. Zuckerberg and Google CHOSE THIS.
Didn’t say the bill applied to users AT ALL but does apply to the intermediary hosting the links… IE lemmy.ca could be targeted due to the vague broad definition. If Lemmy.ca became a popular source of information news outlets could demand arbitration or try to harass lemmy.ca legally. Which even if there was nothing for them to win could be costly.
Show an example from the bill please I have done so to highlight that it vaguely defines who is liable. How does this help the people by charging for listing links?
skipped over this better definision in the bill
digital news intermediary means an online communications platform, including a search engine or social media service, that is subject to the legislative authority of Parliament and that makes news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada. It does not include an online communications platform that is a messaging service the primary purpose of which is to allow persons to communicate with each other privately. (intermédiaire de nouvelles numériques)
lemmy instances would fall under a social media service
news content means content — in any format, including an audio or audiovisual format — that reports on, investigates or explains current issues or events of public interest and includes such content that an Indigenous news outlet makes available by means of Indigenous storytelling. (contenu de nouvelles)
<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">Making available of news content
</span><span style="color:#323232;">(2) For the purposes of this Act, news content is made available if
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">(a) the news content, or any portion of it, is reproduced; or
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">(b) **access to the news content, or any portion of it, is facilitated by any means, including an index, aggregation or ranking of news content.**
</span>
Links would fall under “is facilitated by any means, including an index”
Why are you defending anti-democratic multi-billionaire influence peddlers META and Google instead of people? We have to be profiting by linking news items to be in violation. We are NOT profiting here.
Who said I was? It is a bad / vague law… I think most of the traditional news outlets are just as bad trying to milk money with clickbait and one sided stories.
This is designed to stop reporting in a way that appeases an algorithm set by billionaires. It frees MSM and all news outlets to report facts only. It sets all news outlets on an even footing. This will benefit Canadian citizens and democracy.
@aranym Can we get this globally?? Then perhaps more people would get their news from actual sources and not blindly trust a random link on a social platform.
All META and other billionaire anti-democracy thieves have to do is pay their fair share. I support this 100%. Fuck Zuckerberg and greeder tech bros. #BoycottMETA
That law exist, actually already in its second version, it's just a massiv shitshow. Leistungsschutzrecht. After a massive failure the first time in 2013 the second version ain't any better. The law is needlessly vague, doesn't clearly define who a publisher is or a charachter limit for free preview.
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