News Media Canada and National Post both reported earlier this week that Facebook Canada have not ruled out blocking the exchange of news over its platform now that the recently introduced Online News Act would require them to share revenue with the publishers.
Bill C-18 would require platforms like Facebook and Google to negotiate revenue-sharing contracts with Canadian news publishers. Non-compliance with the bill could lead to daily fines of up to $15 million by the CRTC.
Meta Canada’s public policy manager Rachel Curran claimed at a parliamentary committee meeting that Facebook Canada could not decide on a response without careful review of the bill, as they were not consulted about its development beforehand.
However, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s office was quick to rebuff that claim. In a statement to the National Post, press secretary Laura Scaffidi said that Rodriguez and other Heritage ministers had in fact met with Facebook, and that Facebook Canada chose not to participate in consultations after the first phase.
“Since the bill was introduced,” said Scaffidi in her statement, “we have not heard from Facebook — until Ms. Curran’s false claim.”
According to Aberdeen Publishing president Robert Doull, independent publishers have not been involved in what negotiations have happened with Facebook or Google to date, so he is currently unable to comment on the likely impact for small and rural newspapers in the area.
“We don’t know the terms of the present agreements,” said Doull. “I have heard from some smaller publishers that the amounts are not meaningful for them, but it is hard for me to try to come to any sort of conclusion until I have all the details.”
Merritt Herald editor Izaiah Reyes would appreciate and welcome the new source of revenue offered by the federal bill, but he feels that small news publishers do owe a debt to Facebook for broadening their readership through increased exposure.
Reyes worries that the “undeniably significant portion of our audience that get their news primarily through Facebook” will not look elsewhere if that source is lost, and said that he is “not too keen on the idea that a failed negotiation should end up with a consequence as extreme as a total ban on Canadian news content” on Facebook’s part.
Reporter Marius Auel, however, feels more strongly that the government’s intervention is long overdue and necessary to protect “the diversity and perspective that local news brings to the table.”
“There is undoubtedly a connection between the rate that local news operations have been closing in recent years and record high numbers in generated online advertising revenue in Canada,” Auel said, which he believes the revenue split with online platforms could begin to repair.
Australia passed a similar bill in early 2021, the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which led to Facebook banning the exchange of any news stories, whether regional to them or international, from their Australian platform.
At the time, Facebook Australia’s managing director William Easton argued that Australia’s laws were not clear enough in their wording and the only way to respect them was to execute a blanket ban.
Easton also said that “the value exchange between Facebook and publishers runs in favour of the publishers — which is the reverse of what the legislation would require the arbitrator to assume. Last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers.”
In the end, the Australian government held their ground and Facebook chose to reinstate the platform’s news-sharing abilities and negotiate a deal with publishers.
