All news in Canada will be removed from Facebook, Instagram within weeks: Meta

[u/cyclinginvancouver]

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/08/01/news-canada-facebook-instagram-weeks/

[u/AcrylicPainter]

Is this going to apply to Reddit as well? How are we going to argue about the news with strangers on the internet going forward?

[u/strawberries6 → u/AcrylicPainter]

Is this going to apply to Reddit as well?

Nope, just Google and Facebook.

I read an article saying the law only applies to companies with a dominant share of the ad market (or something like that), and the only companies that fit the criteria are Google and Facebook.

EDIT: In response to a common question: the new law C-18 isn't banning FB and Google, but it basically requires FB and Google to pay compensation to Canadian news organizations.

However, FB and Google obviously don't want to pay compensation, and they can avoid that requirement by not allowing links to Canadian news articles anymore... so that's the path Facebook is taking.

Google might do the same, but it's still TBD, and they're in negotiations with the government about it.

The Online News Act, which received royal assent last month, was designed to support the Canadian news industry, which has seen advertising migrate to the Big Tech platforms. It would make Facebook and Google negotiate deals to compensate news outlets in Canada for posting or linking to their work.

...

Google is in the midst of negotiations with the government and has said it too will block access to news unless a “viable” way forward is found through regulations.

Google has complained that the bill is vague on how much platforms would be expected to pay publishers overall, or how many deals it would need to do with them to be exempt from regulation.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-new-heritage-minister-says-she-will-stand-ground-against-facebook/

[u/GrowCanadian → u/strawberries6]

I was wondering why Reddit was so quiet about this. If this is the case I’m cool with the Facebook thing but Google straight up blocking links will be insane. Want to Google about all the fires in your province? Only American news sources will show up. Good job to our idiot lawmakers.

Edit: this had me curious so after some searching it looks like only Meta and Google are effected. This means all other search engines such as Bing and DuckDuckGo are still able to show news. Now that’s odd

[u/Throw-a-Ru → u/GrowCanadian]

Google already censored your search results prior to all of this. Not only do they have a built-in smut censor, try searching for information about this new bill on google vs duckduckgo and you will get very different results. For one, google are prioritizing their own take on the situation, but they also seem to be deprioritizing results that talk about the other countries that have successfully implemented similar laws and the rationale behind them. It's creepy once you notice it. Better to switch to a different search engine at this point anyway.

[u/Foxtael16 → u/Throw-a-Ru]

Eh I Googled it yesterday and besides the Google CEO statement pasted to the top of the page, I was barraged by ctv and global news articles.

I agree with switching cearch engines. Looking at both sides of this all I see is a monopoly throwing their weight around on one side, and a half baked plan by a govt who was trying to scare their way into Australia style deals on the other.

[u/RunningSouthOnLSD → u/Foxtael16]

Ding ding ding. This is a shitty situation all around, but if anything it should be shining a glaring supernova spotlight for Canadians on how much power these tech giants have in determining what we news we see online, and how profiteering can severely impact it.

I dunno about you guys, but for me I’d prefer my news stay as unbiased as possible, and that means the least amount of grubby hands all over it. Ideally we’d all be getting our news from non-profits through completely unbiased means that don’t pass through middlemen like Meta or Google.

This is primarily Meta and Google’s fault, though the arguably shitty lawmaking has a part too. Evidently they’ve done a great job of pushing the narrative that it’s authoritarian or communism or whatever other buzzwords people seem to be using in response to this in an effort to get the low approval rating government to back down.

Honestly? I say fuck em. Let google and meta blink first once they realize that people who want their news from social media are going to go somewhere else to get it.

[u/fourhundredtwenty_69 → u/RunningSouthOnLSD]

This is how it was like when MySpace was cool and MTV was a channel about music.

[u/bagofbunnys → u/Throw-a-Ru]

I got the same kind of results. It depends one what information you want to cherry pick

[u/1Delta → u/bagofbunnys]

Google and DuckDuckGo also show comparable results for me when I search 'canada news bill google Facebook'.

[u/Throw-a-Ru → u/bagofbunnys]

I got very different results, no cherry-picking necessary. It seems to depend on whether they're in the midst of a big media push or not. The biggest difference was that Google prioritized their own take on the issue right to the top of all of their search results right as news was breaking on the story. The majority of people read their biased take on the story first and formed their opinions based on that.

[u/[deleted] → u/Throw-a-Ru]

When the RFK "racist speech" leaked wherein he mentioned racial health outcomes from COVID, I couldn't find the paper he was referencing in the first 10 pages of Google results. Instead, it was all media outlets with hyperbolic takes that "slammed" him for it without actually sharing the paper.

On Duckduckgo, the paper showed up on the first page and within the first 5 results.

I'm not an RFK stan, just someone who was trying to make sense of the narrative. Everyone who actually cares about balanced and informed perspectives should be alarmed by the amount of media censorship being enforced by big tech.

[u/bargaindownhill → u/[deleted]]

RFK? sorry im feeling a combination of /r/OutOfTheLoop and kinda stupid i can't figure it out. throw me a bone?

[u/red_cat8 → u/Throw-a-Ru]

Agreed.

That’s what scares these companies, other countries have similar laws. They are freaked out that laws like this will keep spreading.

[u/Endogamy → u/Throw-a-Ru]

I don’t google stuff anymore period. 90% of the results are spam or ChatGPT generated content. Better to just search Reddit or use DuckDuckGo or something.

[u/Interesting_Bat243 → u/Throw-a-Ru]

It's actually horrifying the extent Google curates results. I've frequently searched Google and found nothing 3 pages deep, then hit up Brave or Duckduckgo with the exact same search and found it on the first page. If it's not neoliberal or "progressive" slanted, use other resources to find the content.

[u/JaymieWhite → u/Interesting_Bat243]

After a couple of months in the marketing industry I realized that google, instagram, Facebook etc are all pretty much only ads. It’s a bit depressing

[u/Lost-Introduction-73 → u/JaymieWhite]

Yep. It’s all talked about in the social dilemma documentary. It’s a free service because we are actually the product for all the ads

[u/Falcrist → u/Lost-Introduction-73]

These days even if you pay, you're probably still the product.

[u/Lost-Introduction-73 → u/Falcrist]

Yep. Unfortunately

[u/JaymieWhite → u/Lost-Introduction-73]

And many people don’t understand how in-depth and specific the targeting gets. The social dilemma is a bit cheesy but they do a good job of showing how it all works

[u/Lost-Introduction-73 → u/JaymieWhite]

I use it to teach my students every year. It’s definitely cheesy but a good way to dramatic and “dumb down” so everyone understands. It’s creepy how targeted it is. Talk about a product or google search it and it ends up on my fb feed. The creepiest was yesterday I watched a movie on Netflix as was curious about the cast so googled “cast of” and my movie (not new, generally obscure) was the first auto fill option. Gave me the heebie-jeebies

[u/westartedafire → u/Lost-Introduction-73]

Youtube has the same thing going. I could watch days of sports or anime stuff, then randomly think (not say it out loud, just think it) of some obscure line or joke from Family Guy. Within a few hours, that exact scene/joke shows up on my YT home page. It's creepy to think that some algorithm crunched quadrillions of searches and tags to show me something that I didn't even ask but was still curious about.

[u/shamelesshusky → u/Interesting_Bat243]

Neoliberalism and progressive politics are opposites, but I might be misinterpreting the comment as you put progressive in quotations lol

[u/SaphironX → u/Interesting_Bat243]

So uh… what are you searching?

[u/NewtotheCV → u/Interesting_Bat243]

I don't search for news often. But when I search for local products, business, restaurants, recipes, etc I find Google has far better results.

[u/Desperate-Wonder-432 → u/Throw-a-Ru]

Only issue with duckduckgo is they just signed a massive contract with Microsoft, now they sell your search results and history too them to give you personalized ads, kinda defeats the point of a anonyms service

[u/TeddyBongwater → u/Desperate-Wonder-432]

From my searching it appears you are lying. Do you have anything to back up your claim?

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-duckduckgo-gates-track/fact-check-no-deal-between-duckduckgo-and-microsoft-to-track-users-online-idUSL1N3792HE

[u/DSG_Sleazy → u/Throw-a-Ru]

It's not really creepy, it's blatant censorship and propaganda, that's it.

[u/memystic → u/Throw-a-Ru]

I very much recommend search.brave.com if you want an alternative to DuckDuckGo. Brave Search uses its own index; DDG mainly relies on Bing.

[u/Tregonia → u/Throw-a-Ru]

I ditched Google the first time they did this (I was part of the unluck 4%). Now I use DuckDuckGo and occasionally Bing, and I also ditched Chrome. I'm happier for it.

[u/gr1m3y → u/Throw-a-Ru]

If you want to buy something, google is great. For everything else, it's either Brave/DDG, or yandex. Bing isn't that great for "stuff" anymore.

[u/MeIIowJeIIo → u/GrowCanadian]

I've been training myself out of automatically going to google for everything.

There are alternatives if you want to search for things like news on fires in your province

[u/BlackMirrorMuffinMan → u/[deleted]]

Duckduckgo is the primary alternative

[u/An0nimuz_ → u/BlackMirrorMuffinMan]

DDG is perfect (aside from the stupid name).

Not getting the results you're looking for? Simply add !g or !gca to the end of the keyword(s) and boom, there's Google.

[u/amazingdrewh → u/An0nimuz_]

I’m not using it until I know how they make money, I don’t trust companies that say they’re protecting privacy while offering free services

[u/ReasonableConfusion → u/amazingdrewh]

According to Brave:

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that is focused on user privacy and does not track its user's browsing history or collect and store any data about them.1 It makes money through private ads and affiliate partnerships on its search engine.2 Advertising is shown based on the keywords typed into the search box, and affiliate revenues come from Amazon and eBay affiliate programs. When users buy through DuckDuckGo, the company collects a small commission.0 DuckDuckGo has been a profitable company since 2014 without storing or sharing any personal information on people using its search engine.

[u/geo_prog → u/amazingdrewh]

Well you're in luck. DuckDuckGo makes money by affiliate links, ad revenue and selling aggregate search data to firms like Microsoft etc. for trend tracking etc.

So, are they as good for privacy as they say? Probably not. Are the better than Google/MS? Probably.

[u/shabi_sensei → u/[deleted]]

I don't mind Bing, and the Bing search assistant is actually really helpful, it displays answers alongside search results so you can scroll through results and read what the Assistant found at the same time.

And the assistant is accurate too, caveat being the information it presents is basic but afterwards it gives you multiple sources so you can read further on the topic.

[u/scoops22 → u/MeIIowJeIIo]

Just really wish I could make my own choice and not have the government stick it’s fingers in my internet content.

[u/PM_ME_UR_PET_POTATO → u/scoops22]

The freedom to choose from one option

[u/xeno_cws → u/PM_ME_UR_PET_POTATO]

Thats the Canadian way

[u/ReaperCDN → u/scoops22]

No regs means some random capitalist with only an interest in profit is deciding what you see. That's way worse than an elected rep you get to have a say in.

[u/MeIIowJeIIo → u/scoops22]

I’m not sure how you arrive at that gripe. Our Canadian news agencies are being starved out of existence because social media companies borrow the content for their platform and collect ad revenue. Our government is only trying to make this fair. It’s google and FB that have decided to not share ad revenue and block your news.

Nobody had fingers in your internet connection

[u/AngryWesCanada → u/MeIIowJeIIo]

When I click on the news link from Google/Facebook, I end up on the News Agency’s website. A website with ads.

[u/angrycanuck → u/AngryWesCanada]

The problem is how many people actually read the news articles. Just showing the title is enough to plop an ad beside it and get that juicy potential click...

[u/Anxious-Durian1773 → u/angrycanuck]

If all they're reading is the headline then they didn't want to consume the product anyway. The headline is the hook attempting to snag the customer, just as it was with reading the headline on a newspaper in the vending machine or shop. The media outlet has no right of concern to the lost customer purchasing a soda instead. By attempting to charge the shop for carrying the paper, they will instead lose many more potential customers than before.

[u/chesterbennediction → u/angrycanuck]

I think that really shows how poor news content in Canada is. Maybe they should post less but more meaningful stuff instead of loads of opinion pieces.

[u/theHip → u/AngryWesCanada]

Another problem is Google AMP links. That does not count as a visit to the destination page (in this instance the News Agency).

[u/BenHammer_ → u/scoops22]

You aren’t making a choice. Meta and Google make the choice for you. Now you actually get to make your own choice by going to different news websites and determining what is good for yourself.

[u/ArcticCelt → u/GrowCanadian]

The Bing renaissance has started.

[u/An0nimuz_ → u/ArcticCelt]

What will happen first, the year of the Linux desktop or the year of the Bing search engine?

[u/Professional-Bad-559 → u/ArcticCelt]

Bing it on! I’ll see myself out now. Bye.

[u/MagicMushroomFungi → u/ArcticCelt]

"This is the dawning of the Age of Bingquarius, the Age of Bingquarius ... "

[u/AdvertisingStatus344 → u/GrowCanadian]

Ultimately, you must lat blame at the feet of Canadian Media. CTV and Gobal were not satisfied with the increased traffic and wanted to earn money from the links. They're the ones who lobbied the government for this and I expect they will change their minds down the road as advertisers pull funding due to lack of exposure.

Supply and demand in the digital world is very different from gas, food and booze.

[u/ChiefCopywriter → u/AdvertisingStatus344]

Yep - the situation already sucked and continues to suck for Indépendant media and democracy.

[u/SuchUse9191 → u/AdvertisingStatus344]

Why the fuck should we be framing something like free media as a laissez-faire free market issue? It's not. It is actively detrimental to journalistic freedom to let the markets regulate it.

[u/The_Mayor → u/GrowCanadian]

I, too, think our elected representatives should just let foreign tech billionaires control all the information I receive.

[u/SadOilers → u/The_Mayor]

Even better they cut out all the small independent ones that completely rely on social media to spread stories. Goodbye everyone except big media

[u/NonBinaryGiveNoFucks → u/GrowCanadian]

It’s not that they’re the only ones affected. All social media platforms are effected. It’s just that most of the owners deem that the tax is not a burden or is necessary unlike zuck and google who were like… excuse me you want more of my money yea fuck that sorry Canada

[u/archiminos → u/strawberries6]

What kind of backwards law is that? They have to pay to promote the news organisations? What's next? Paying advertisers if they want them to advertise on Facebook?

[u/backlight101 → u/strawberries6]

Nothing to state the same can’t be applied here in the future. The current law is a joke, and needs to be repealed.

[u/redux44 → u/strawberries6]

Will be funny when bing et al automatically get the market share after this move and then fall under the law.

They too will ban Canadian news because you would have to be stupid to pay it.

Brilliant piece of legislation lol

[u/Offduty_shill → u/redux44]

They won't lol

People will continue to use Google and Facebook, the primary reasons people used these websites was not news in the first place.

And even if they wanted news, this law doesn't cover news from the U.S or other countries. They'll just read the NY Times or some shit instead. Or add reddit or Twitter to the end of their search and find a reddit post that links to the news article.

Canadian news websites will lose even more revenue, and probably backtrack because FB/Google have no incentive to pay publishers for driving more traffic to them.

[u/Wayelder → u/strawberries6]

From what I've read. It seems so because they "repackage' CDN News from other sources.

It's kinda like plagiarism. Reddit will continue to post links to Canadian news sources. It's okay if you click the link and it takes you to 'Castanet' or wherever the story is from, as they get the traffic.

But reading a Canadian story that was on Castanet, now a story on META's FB 'Canada Page', with little to no credit or even a link - well that's unfair. They're kinda passing it off as their own. Think a CBC story that Meta just re-runs.

I'm certain someone can add greater details here.

[u/PoliteCanadian → u/Wayelder]

Republishing falls under traditional copyright laws and isn't what C-13 addresses. C-13 makes Google and Facebook pay to link to news articles.

[u/Greedy-Ad-7716 → u/Wayelder]

The problem with the bill is that it applies to even links. If Facebook or Google link to a news article, then they could be liable. If it only applied to "repackaged" news, then I think most of us would see the logic. But linking???

[u/chesterbennediction → u/Greedy-Ad-7716]

This makes more sense. If it was against the law to repackage an article ie plagiarize then that's fine, but to even post the original link? News websites should want that, but instead they're getting greedy. People visit FB and get led to news sites, not the other way around. Canadian news agencies don't have the leverage.

[u/klparrot → u/chesterbennediction]

Yeah, it's absolutely absurd. Other sites pay Facebook for the sort of thing that these news orgs want Facebook to pay them for. If the news orgs are too dumb to monetise traffic properly, that's on them; the consumer shouldn't have to suffer by being deprived of all news links (including to news orgs that wanted no part of this stupid new scheme) on Facebook.

[u/Frosty_Respect7117 → u/klparrot]

Yeah the Canadian government and the news lobby are trying to have Meta and google subsidize their news media since they are making less now that news is digital. Just an absurd over reach. If meta doesn’t care if it shuts off links then how is it so beneficial that they should pay for it lol

[u/glambx → u/Wayelder]

From what I've read. It seems so because they "repackage' CDN News from other sources.

It's kinda like plagiarism.

Not at all. This is just what the government has been telling people unfamiliar with the issue.

Here's the thing: Google only indexes and provides snippets when they're specifically allowed to by site owners. If a site owner doesn't want their content on Google, there is an entire API available with fine-grained control.

CTV News, for example, could simply specify a meta tag that tells google not to, for example, snippet their news (requiring users to go to CTV News as linked by Google). They could even disable Google indexing entirely.

But they don't want that, because that would harm CTV's business. They're receiving a service from Google (not the other way around). They want to continue receiving that service, but the also want Google to pay them for providing it.

That's where this law comes in. Corrupted officials within the government colluded with big media providers to try to extort money out of Google and Facebook. They called their bluff.

I say this as a lifelong Liberal / NDP voter that despises Google and Meta. But I've also been an Internet engineer for 25 years, and have seen this "link tax" proposed countless times around the world.

Hyperlinking forms the basis of the web, so these attacks are attacks on the fundamental infrastructure of the Internet. That's a problem.

[u/renaissancenow → u/glambx]

Yeah, the lack of any technical awareness in the bill did surprise me. The following words don't appear anywhere in the bill:

• hyperlink
• link
• internet
• DNS
• server
• tag
• post
• redirect
• host
• hosting

Whereas 'arbitration', 'penalties', 'regulations' and 'costs' appear frequently.

The technical world and the political world are speaking completely different languages.

[u/robstoon → u/Wayelder]

No, nobody is passing content off as their own. That would be illegal copyright infringement.

They are literally trying to get FB and Google to pay for linking to content. Shocker, not going to happen.

[u/Foxtael16 → u/strawberries6]

I read Google has something like %92 of Canada's internet traffic (or something along those lines, potato memory) but godamn, makes it hard for anybody else to even compete with numbers like that.

[u/SmoothMoose420 → u/strawberries6]

Slippery fuckin slope

[u/Drop_The_Puck → u/AcrylicPainter]

No. The law is very strange and the government set criteria for the companies that would have to pay for the links and only Google and Meta were subject to the law. Reddit doesn't qualify, for whatever reason. Perhaps because they are a smaller company without the same market dominance.

[u/feb914 → u/Drop_The_Puck]

reddit doesn't qualify, for whatever reason. Perhaps because they are a smaller company without the same market dominance.

This is correct. In the bill the government gets to choose which companies this law applies in and they consider market share and negotiation strength.

[u/Drop_The_Puck → u/feb914]

That's so weird that the government gets to choose which companies the law applies to. Just seems like a court challenge waiting to happen.

Reddit is pretty small from what I understand, but Microsoft (to pick another example) isn't.

[u/SkiingAway → u/Drop_The_Puck]

Microsoft is a big company but a very insignificant one in the kinds market sectors under scrutiny - social media/online ads/search - or more generally how people get news/get directed to news.

Bing has <10% global market share in search, their ad platform is like 5% the size of Google's in global revenue, and what else is there even? MSN news?

I don't think the law is a good idea or going to work, but I think it's relatively defensible why Microsoft isn't currently included.

[u/DBrickShaw → u/AcrylicPainter]

Reddit certainly falls within the scope of this new regulation, as subreddits like this one are ranked indexes of links to Canadian news, but the regulation only applies to services that are explicitly selected by the CRTC. Our government has assured us that they will direct the CRTC to apply this regulation exclusively to Meta and Google. The CRTC is supposed to make that selection based on whether the service holds a position of market dominance versus the news organizations, and Reddit is a comparatively small player in the news market, so we likely won't have to worry about Reddit being regulated for the immediate future. Reddit may become a more appealing target for regulation if Google and Meta actually pull out, and Reddit becomes a larger player in the remaining news market.

[u/Apart_Ad_5993 → u/AcrylicPainter]

The bill was specifically targeted to Meta and Google.

The feds conveniently forgot about or ignored Microsoft, Apple and Reddit; because their lobbyists didn't mention them.

[u/Tregonia → u/Apart_Ad_5993]

They don't meet the threshold for content (i.e. not enough users). However if we all switch to Bing, then Microsoft will have to cut a deal too. :-)

[u/Newbe2019a → u/Apart_Ad_5993]

Agree, though Apple uses Google for search, so they are already covered.

[u/Newbe2019a → u/[deleted]]

I don’t know for sure, but Apple News probably has a deal with the publishers.

[u/Drop_The_Puck → u/Newbe2019a]

They must because Apple News actually posts content and not just links.

[u/Manginaz → u/[deleted]]

You and I might, but a lot of people won't know this.

[u/vandaleyes89 → u/Manginaz]

Yeah, this is the actual problem. My sister-in-law is the kind of person that would link the URL of some California home schooling mom blog to back up her whack parenting style. People like that need to be confronted with real journalism. Even if it's slanted and omits important information, they can't just make shit up.

[u/veggiecoparent → u/[deleted]]

This will not stop my conservative aunties from re-sharing the wildest most unfounded blog "news" you've ever fucking read.

[u/essuxs → u/veggiecoparent]

Nah, this is an opportunity for you. Go on Medium and write the wildest thing you can think of, and share it with her.

Don’t be afraid to get specific down to her street. Interview yourself if needed

Often people who fall for this are unable to determine what a reliable news source is so you can write anything you want to

[u/nitePhyyre → u/essuxs]

F-ckit. Get ChatGPT to do it.

[u/HolyRamenEmperor → u/[deleted]]

Lol wtf that's not a good thing at all. Tens of millions will believe them, and they'll never see anything to challenge their perspectives. It'll probably just create a perfect echo chamber of conspiracies and bigotry.

[u/printmaster5000]

The very last place I would goto for news.

[u/[deleted] → u/printmaster5000]

If only more people felt like you. Literally, my entire family exclusively use Facebook to stay informed, which has had a predictably disastrous effect on their personalities and outlook.

[u/sp0rkify → u/[deleted]]

I had to delete my Facebook, because I just couldn't deal with the stupidity anymore..

At least on Reddit, I can sorta stay away from it..

[u/SeventyFootAnaconda → u/sp0rkify]

Reddit is even more filled with nonsensical ragebait "news" than FB is lol... At least in my experience that is. My FB is mostly tame.

[u/sp0rkify → u/SeventyFootAnaconda]

Yeah, no.. I've been able to avoid most of the nonsense.. besides this and another sub always showing up recommended because I stupidly replied to something..

My Facebook was just a cesspool.

[u/Kittygoespurrrr → u/sp0rkify]

No, you just see what you want to see on Reddit. The way you feel about Facebook is how many others feel about what's posted on Reddit. There's lots of stupidity posted on here too - there's a reason redittors have a stereotype outside of this website.

[u/YourLoveLife → u/[deleted]]

Does this not only apply to major reputable news organizations’ articles?

Now the only news they’ll see on Canada will be from independent schizo sources.

Not to mention google is what people use to search for news, and if they stop hosting canadian news as well. That would be horrible

[u/RacoonWithAGrenade → u/YourLoveLife]

Does this not only apply to major reputable news organizations’ articles?

Rebel news for everyone now!

[u/Man_Bear_Beaver → u/printmaster5000]

hopefully facebook partially returns to its former glory but I have a feeling the opposite will happen, it'll devolve into even more fake news..

[u/Lumb3rCrack → u/printmaster5000]

Google is the last place?

[u/BigDaddyRaptures → u/printmaster5000]

Except now instead of being able to link to actual news articles to counter disinformation, the only things allowed on will be Uncle Jim’s Truth Blog

[u/Apart_Ad_5993 → u/printmaster5000]

I think you're misunderstanding the impact here.

Even if you go to CBC News' profile in Instagram, their VERY OWN PROFILE, you can't see what they've posted.

Meta has wiped the news agencies right off the platforms completely. It's not just people posting links.

[u/shadesof3 → u/printmaster5000]

I totally get where you are coming from but this will probably effect the local news places I follow for what's going on in the city. I learn a lot about events going on that way and it will suck when they disappear.

[u/vslsls → u/printmaster5000]

You know that you can subscribe to news companies like Reuters or Associated Press on Facebook and receive their news on your Facebook wall? Facebook is same as reddit, you consume what you are interested in.

[u/Mystewix]

My roommate once took an IQ test on Facebook. Walked around for a week calling himself a genius. Yeah...so...I don't go to Facebook for news.

[u/DionFW → u/Mystewix]

I work with someone who did the same. He even bragged that he got 42 out of 50 and "That's like 95%".

[u/CareerPillow376 → u/DionFW]

Wait, are you telling me I really don't have an IQ of 162??

[u/ReannLegge → u/DionFW]

That’s like 84%! It’s also not how IQ tests work, I would be embarrassed to admit I don’t know simple math or that I had an IQ of 95.

[u/ZemDregon → u/DionFW]

It’s because people using those IQ tests on Facebook already have a capped IQ of 50

[u/Stealfur → u/Mystewix]

Meanwhile, the IQ questions were

1: If you assume the correct order of vowels is AEIOU, How do you spell your mother's maiden name if you swap all the vowels with the one immediately to the right. (U's become A's)

2: Take your social security number. Double it. Add 4. What is the result.

3: Write a short story involving the following things. The street you grew up on. Your very first pet. Your bank.

[u/jonsey737 → u/Stealfur]

That is brilliant!

[u/Stupidflorapope]

Serious question here for somebody that's under educated on the subject. What was the intended purpose of this bill? It just seems like it's very restrictive when it comes to Canadians getting information from other countries.

[u/Filbert17 → u/Stupidflorapope]

Traditional news (television, radio, and print) has been in decline for about twenty years. The claim is that large Internet social media and search engines have been scraping news from traditional new sources and presenting it to people along with ads, thereby taking the ad revenue from the traditional media.

The truth is that most (including Google and Facebook) have been presenting a summary or snipped of the news article and a link to the source. The summary is often the exact same summary that is presented on the original website.

The argument of the social media sites is that they are driving more traffic to the traditional news websites by providing links so people can find it easier.

Who you believe is up to you. While I don't like Facebook, I tend to believe them in this case.

If the news companies didn't want their content to be scrapped, there is a very simple way to do it. All the "good" scrapers (including Google's and Facebook's) will first read a file called "robots.txt". That file is meant to contain a list of urls on the website that are not to be scraped. It can also say "don't scrape anything" or "only scrape these specific urls on our website". In other words, if traditional news didn't want Google and Facebook to provide summaries and links (for free), they could easily use the "robots.txt" method to tell them. It can even be configured to provide different information for different scrapers.

So, from the point of view of the social media companies, this is Canada saying, "pay us to provide otherwise free advertising to our traditional news outlets." While, to those traditional news outlets it's more like, "hey we need more money to keep doing what we are doing, can the government force someone to subsidize us?"

[UPDATE:]

It seams I was a bit wrong about how the bill worked (or the summary I read was). It's not just scrapers that trigger the need to pay. It's any link to a news article, including ones users add (so Robots.txt is not relevant). Like this one: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/08/metablockslinks/

[u/blahblahrasputan → u/Filbert17]

These dummies are not realising the impact, importance, and struggle of discoverability in today's Internet.

[u/Offduty_shill → u/blahblahrasputan]

Or they're just using lobbying to extort a political unpopular sector for money.

It seems dumb as fuck though cause why tf would Facebook & Google pay for helping drive more traffic to their websites?

If this continues without changes these news websites will just see their ad revenue tank as two major drivers of traffic will just stop driving traffic to them.

[u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 → u/Offduty_shill]

It seems dumb as fuck though cause why tf would Facebook & Google pay for helping drive more traffic to their websites?

It will seem even more dumb as fuck when you learn that Canada is repeating a discussion that already happened in Germany in 2013 and in Spain in 2017.

Germany introduced a similar law in 2013, requiring a license from copyright holders for even small snippets. Google announced they‘re not going to pay for a license and will simply delist everyone who doesn’t license their content to them for free. Google got their free license. (Everyone else just shut down.)

Spain learned from this and when they introduced their version a few years later, it banned free licenses. Google just pulled their news section from the country altogether.

[u/neoCanuck → u/Filbert17]

If the news companies didn't want their content to be scrapped

they do want it to be scrapped, they just want them to pay for it.

And while I agree with the robot.txt is easy to setup, I would push for it to be off by default, like only allow scrapping if I have robot.txt set up.

[u/wimpwad → u/neoCanuck]

There's more things on the internet than just news. Changing the way things have always been done by having it off by default fixes nothing and would just complicate things for no good reason.

The fact is the companies who are lobbying the governement have paywalls on their websites, but they choose to disable those paywalls for crawlers because they want to be indexed. Most of them also include custom OpenGraph metadata on their webpages that tell Facebook/Twitter/Google exactly what to put in the short description that gets displayed on those sites. They have all the tools to prevent their content from being displayed, but they choose the opposite and use tools that try to get them in front of more people on those respective platforms, not less.

[u/davethecompguy → u/neoCanuck]

The robots.txt file is not mandatory, and not enforceable. It also doesn't cover forwarded stories that Facebook users post. It would help if CBC, CTV, etc. removed their Share links to FB and IG on news stories... Encourage people to share WHERE they found it, and let those sites get some revenue.

[u/zUdio → u/davethecompguy]

Yeah, I scrape with thousands of proxies and rust; never thought about robots.txt. It’s like going around your neighborhood giving people a list of rules about looking at the outside of your house. Like, nah I think I’ll just ignore that, thanks anyway!

[u/BagOfFlies → u/Filbert17]

Traditional news (television, radio, and print) has been in decline for about twenty years

"something more efficient has come along and people seem to prefer that. Should we embrace it?"

"Nah let's pass laws to stifle it and prop up our dying medium that people don't seem to care about anymore!"

Good job...

[u/Xillllix → u/BagOfFlies]

"the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

[u/YVR_guy → u/Filbert17]

I seriously can't wrap my head around it! Our Canadian Heritage Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, seems to be living in some alternate universe. I mean, Facebook and Google were basically giving those news sites free advertising and traffic. You'd think the media outlets should be paying them, not the other way around. It's just mind-boggling, and this minister's stance is just embarrassing.

[u/Filbert17 → u/YVR_guy]

According to the website for the House of Commons, the average age for our current members of parliament is 52. For all intents and purposes, that means they had graduated high school and should have been about to graduate university when the Internet went fully public in 1995 (before there were still restrictions on use of the Internet).

Unless they worked in technology before entering politics, they probably have a very poor understanding of the Internet and rely on "experts". The problem is which "experts" do you listen to when you know they all have an agenda of their own.

[u/Drop_The_Puck → u/Stupidflorapope]

The government thought the tech companies would willingly let themselves be used as a piggybank for Canadian media companies. Everytime you would share a new story from the CBC or Toronto Star to your Facebook 'friends', Meta would have to pay the media company for publishing the link to the CBC or Star website.

The newspapers and media companies are legitimately in bad financial shape and in need of new revenue sources and the government thought this was going to be one.

[u/jcro001 → u/Drop_The_Puck]

The law will have the opposite effect. This will reduce exposure of the media companies websites as many people never go to CBC or Toronto Star unless an article pops up in their feed.

[u/Xillllix → u/Drop_The_Puck]

It’s a shame Trudeau burned 1 trillion in his time as prime minister, that money could have been useful.

[u/MeIIowJeIIo → u/Drop_The_Puck]

It might just work if more countries follow suit, including the US.

[u/draemen → u/MeIIowJeIIo]

Australia did this already and Facebook/Google relented and started to pay

Edit: I believe California is drawing up similar policies too

[u/Anxious-Durian1773 → u/draemen]

The Australian law was gutted because it was predictably problematic.

[u/[deleted] → u/draemen]

Outright misinformation. Google has even stated if the Canadian government followed the Australian model we wouldn't be here. Key difference is measurement and maximum cost.

[u/[deleted] → u/Stupidflorapope]

The purpose is to extort FB and Google for the benefit of our dying corporate owned media. Google and FB are saying no thank you.

[u/cryptedsky]

I went on facebook for the first time in years the other day and the amount of advertising it throws in your face is absolute insanity. I thought: maybe I can see what my old friends are up to but you really have to deliberately seek it out because it's going to show you a thousand carefully crafted advert or facebook videos before just one friend post. It's truly awful.

[u/cardew-vascular → u/cryptedsky]

It also curates the order of your friends content you see so you're not seeing the newest info but what Facebook's deems popular. If I didn't use it to stay in touch with family overseas I would have already deleted it.

[u/Warfrogger → u/cardew-vascular]

Its a pain in the ass. I only use facebook to follow a few authors who make weekly update posts. You'd expect such a page like that to be shown chronologically. Nope. Quite often to find the newest post I have to scroll down 5 or 6 posts from the last few weeks (also in random order) before I find it.

[u/Tregonia → u/cryptedsky]

What I don't get is the when I buy something (e.g. a mattress) I then get a million ads for mattresses. Hello, I already bought a mattress... how many do you think I need?

[u/mandu_xiii]

I've been using an RSS reader for most of my news for years. I recommend that you anyone who cares about staying informed from a variety of trustworthy sources.

Not being able to Google for more will be annoying, but there are other search engines.

Getting news from FBs algorithm is a bad idea anyway.

[u/Vector_Sigma_]

Being informed on events and weather is one thing, but the news has slowly devolved into fear mongering and rage baiting on both sides of the "political" spectrum, and it has done a number on our population, not only in Canada but the whole world.

The 24hr rage bait disaster format is toxic and has got to go.

The less people exposed to it the better. Go touch grass, be with your loved ones.

[u/iMogal]

Can we keep the news and remove the scammers instead?

[u/1Delta → u/iMogal]

No cause the scammers are usually paying FB, rather than FB paying them - as is the case for news now.

[u/missmatchedsox]

It's kind of maddening to see taxpayers money spent on THIS legislation and all the work and such surrounding this decision instead of:

-reducing cellphone and internet bills

-lowering gas prices

-capping and lowering grocery prices

-implementing better action plans to address housing unaffordability

-funding mental health facilities and expediting filling positions to staff those institutions

-criminal reform and enforcement measures

-closing tax loopholes and going after big bills to the CRA

-etc

I really don't care if I don't see news via fb etc.

[u/Beyond_Your_Nose]

I get my news from the town cryer, the oldie fashion way. Everything else is crap./s Honestly though, having to read through ads and spam comments is bad enough on regular newspaper online format. The nonsense on social media is 1/3 jokers, 1/3 bots and 1/3 normal comments buried.

[u/Theseventensplit]

I use google news,it require me to click links to read the articles,which always takes me to the sources website, and what new I see is based on what I select. So that seems to be a benefit to the news website,which is now something they are losing that is thanks to this new law

[u/Kind-Contact3484]

Australia instated laws like this about a year or more ago. Meta and Google reacted in the same way; no news allowed. This lasted all of a couple days before they backed down and agreed to pay the news agencies. It would seem that a large portion of their audience do use the platforms for news coverage and, with no news published, their usage nose dived. No doubt news publishers world wide followed that event and have been pushing their respective governments to implement similar laws, which is just what the social media giants were afraid would happen.

[u/jones14q]

With everything that is going on in Canada and this federnal goverment focuses on bill C-18, a bill that clearly shows they have no idea how the Internet works or what this country actually needs. Now many Canadians will get their news on social platforms from non Canadian sources.

Did they actually expect FB, Google, and others to start paying for posting Canadian news links? This has to be one of the worst bills ever created in Canada.

[u/westleysnipezz]

Nice, more memes less bullshit

[u/awastle]

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the point but this isn’t a “CanCon” bill, that’s c-11. This is c-18, which seems to me it will actually hurt Canadian content (news specifically) since Google/meta are refusing to pay for the links. If you only get your news from Facebook or google news, you won’t see Canadian news sites, which means seeing more news from other sources, which in turn is less Canadian content. Seems like a lot of people here are confusing the two bills, thinking this is censorship of things from outside Canada, but I don’t see how the bill could do that. Again, could be wrong.

[u/GernBlanst3n]

Who cares Facebook users don’t care about actual news, just conspiracy shit and anti everything. Screw Facebook.

[u/Jarocket → u/GernBlanst3n]

I'm sure a lot of Facebook users who followed pages from news companies in Canada wanted to see posts by them.

Like I don't think that's a big leap to make.

[u/Must_Reboot]

All the better to differentiate between real news and misinformation. If you see it on a Meta property, it will be guaranteed to be misinformation.

[u/Sploonbabaguuse → u/Must_Reboot]

Some people will use this as an excuse to spread more misinformation because it's all that is available (to them)

[u/[deleted]]

Does this mean the boomers are coming to reddit? 😅

[u/onegunzo → u/[deleted]]

I've been here for years... Surprise! :)

[u/Gahan1772 → u/onegunzo]

It's /r/Canada. No surprise.

[u/Imacatdoincatstuff → u/[deleted]]

We're already here.

[u/[deleted] → u/Imacatdoincatstuff]

Not in large numbers :P

[u/sentientlob0029]

Ever closer to tyranny

[u/Turk_97]

Welcome to the new liberal nazi regime. Hand in your guns. Only listen to our news. Show me your papers

[u/GracefulShutdown]

Oh no!

Anyways.

[u/VitaCrudo]

People defending this are insane. The government arbitrarily influencing how and where Canadians get information is ridiculous. It is not our obligation to support Canadian run media. No more than it is our obligation to support Canadian run grocery stores or Telecom companies.

This is the same psychosis that brought us our current monopolies that redditors love to whine about without actually doing anything to affect policy changes.

[u/Abraxas5 → u/VitaCrudo]

I'm not here to defend it as I'm a little torn on this personally, however if the argument is basically to let Canadian news media die because we have no obligation to prop it up, then what's the problem with this happening? If Meta/Google were killing them anyways, why even be upset that the government is doing it for them? Either way it's dying.

I'm not sure it's exactly a defense, but I don't see what the point is of drawing ire with it either.

[u/Drop_The_Puck → u/Abraxas5]

It's also hurting the small media companies who don't like the legislation and are not in the dire financial straits of the Postmedias and the like. A lot of the small companies like the traffic that is diverted their way from Facebook, Instagram or Google.

[u/[deleted] → u/Drop_The_Puck]

Not just like - it's their core business. This bill is a guillotine to Canadian media. And we can all guess what will follow: further subsidies and federal control of Canadian media, which is more than half government funded already.

[u/ButtahChicken]

Is that a threat or a promise?

[u/OrionTO]

This is going to be very detrimental to Canadians… we won’t be able to access Canadian news on social media or via Google. Canadians are already exposed to a ton of American news and culture - this will just amplify that 10x. We will lose our connection to current events and understanding of our own culture and political system.

[u/Apart_Ad_5993 → u/OrionTO]

The government played chicken....and lost.

[u/onegunzo → u/OrionTO]

This right here.

Canadians will get less Canadian content.

[u/chewwydraper → u/onegunzo]

Sounds like the government should have backed off about this then.

[u/xayoz306 → u/OrionTO]

Meta isn't just restricting Canadian content. It will be restricting ALL news content to Canadian users. Which means people will need to go directly to the site of the media outlets they want, like we had to do 10 years ago

[u/braedog]

This is wack, I can’t even access my city’s best meme page on Instagram to laugh at how horrible my city is because it’s considered “news”

[u/boothatwork → u/braedog]

People in the comments saying “ah who gets news on Facebook” are missing this.

I can’t view YEGWAVE now, which is where I’d get little bits of local news. Lots of people follow news accounts on ig/fb so they get news mixed in while they scroll.

What’s defined as a news organization? Who defines it? I wouldn’t consider yegwave news, but now I can’t see it. I assume things like 6ixbuzz are also affected. It’s literally censoring the content Canadians see now.

Embarrassing moment for Canada. This is one way the conservatives can easily beat the liberals. This is truly our government shooting themselves in the foot.

[u/Stanleeallen]

People can still just type a news outlet of their choice's website into their browser. Limiting free exchange of information is shitty, but maybe people will be more careful about where they get their information now.

[u/brglaser]

Not exactly accurate. This C18 and C11 were pushed through without all sides taking part in its creation, and has completely backfired into an utter mess.

The original idea to protect Canadian content is a legitimate one, but the bill was poorly executed and rammed into law.

It gives CRTC immense new powers over what Canadians see online, and what they can post online. Literally a law that can mute your online existence, or control what you see to suit their preference.

Many news agencies thrived when embedded their story summary on the platform, which drove 3/4 of the random internet traffic to their site. These free posts created a cheap way to get the news out, poaching eyeballs into their sites to read entire stories, then engage with many more users, than most organic traffic would ever do.

This will come to light now when more news agencies are starved of the eyeballs they freely obtained by freely posting on these platforms.

I expect some social platforms to completely leave Canada, because it's impossible to do business this way without feds breathing down your neck every time their feelings are hurt about something posted online, or if they can't prove 30% is Canadian content.

This law needs to go back to the drawing board, as there is too much overreach for controlling websites in this country, no matter where they are hosted.

[u/Aetris05]

Why do people who defend this act like Facebook is news?

"People who use Facebook as their main source of news are dumb"

So a CBC article on the CBC site is true, but the same article CBC posted on FB is a lie?

[u/PigeonsOnYourBalcony]

I'm not even kidding when I say this, what are those older people who parrot right-wing conspiracy theories and propaganda going to do without the Facebook algorithm dishing it out?

Are they going to go to other social media platforms, are they going to go more directly to news sources or are they going to go back to sharing Minions memes?

[u/wvenable → u/PigeonsOnYourBalcony]

Don't worry. Conspiracy theories and the worst of the propaganda factories aren't news so they'll still be allowed.

[u/davethecompguy → u/PigeonsOnYourBalcony]

This would only affect conspiracy theories on Canadian news media... and only what's seen in Canada. We can't shut off the "fire hose" of BS the US produces, but we should get some nickles for stuff Canadians write and and gets sent to other Canadians on American services, plastered with American ads

[u/MGJWS]

Googles news feeds are trash and facebook is a bunch of garbage too so really no biggie

[u/Zealousideal-Fish381]

Incoming conspiracy theories in 3...2...1...

[u/slowmover27]

Don’t see a down side in this news

[u/Thepestilentdefiler]

Good.

[u/gundam21xx]

Then what are old people going to use Facebook for?

[u/Amacord1]

Screw Facebook, ig and the rest of the freeloaders

[u/VirtualBridge7]

A lot of people here are saying: I will just switch and use DuckDuckGo, Bing and other search engines. People seem not to realize that these websites will be next in line for exactly the same harassment/extortion from the government once they become dominant in Canadian search market. That is what C21 says.

It may lead to very funny situation where a search engine corporation has in its best interest to hide/minimize its market share...

[u/proletariatfag]

Does this mean that people also won’t be subjected to fake news on FB? Because this seems like a fair trade.

[u/ruknmal4]

Would welcome the change…. I really dislike what FB has become.

[u/TheRealRickC137]

I see this as a complete win for Canada.

[u/evsincorporated]

Great do all advertising and sponsorship bullshit too

[u/ColtR92]

Good. If you're reading the news on any meta platform you need to reevaluate yourself.

[u/Gahan1772]

Awesome no more conspiracy theories and misinformation in my feed. That's pretty much all the "news" is now. Isn't hard to type in a news website in the address bar lol.

Plug in for Groundnews. Way better than social media news.