Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked this week about concerns with the implementation of Bill C-18, to which he responded that other countries are quietly backing Canada in its battle against tech companies. I posted a reality check tweet noting that Meta is not returning to news in Canada, the law’s regulation stipulating a 4% fee on revenues is not found anywhere else, and that Bill C-18 has emerged as a model for what not to do. With the House of Commons back in session, it is worth providing a more fulsome reality check on where things stand with the Online News Act. While the government is still talking tough, the law has been an utter disaster, leading to millions in lost revenues with cancelled deals, reduced traffic for Canadian media sites, declining investment in media in Canada, and few options to salvage this mess.
For those that took the summer off, Bill C-18 received royal assent in late June. Over the past three months:
1. Meta has blocked all news links in Canada and cancelled existing deals with Canadian news outlets. The blocked links covers both Canadian and foreign news in light of the broad scope of the law. While the Australian experience lasted a few days, the blocking in Canada has now gone on for weeks and there is little reason to believe that the company will reverse its position to comply with the law by simply not linking to news.
2. The government responded to the blocked news links by stopping to advertise on Facebook and Instagram and encouraging others to do the same. The boycott has had little effect as the Liberal party is still advertising on the platforms with a new round of ads this week, the Prime Minister is still posting on the platforms, and reports indicate that Facebook has not experienced a reduction in user activity. In fact, reports suggest that the experience on Facebook without news has improved. Further, a Competition Act complaint has not sparked any action.
3. Google responded to Bill C-18 by advising it too would remove news links from its services before the law takes effect in December. That position enabled it to wait for the government to release draft regulations that provide further detail on the application of the law and the standards for obtaining an exemption from the mandatory bargaining process that can lead to final offer arbitration overseen by the CRTC.
4. The draft regulations, which caved in some key issues, were released in early September by new Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge. The government envisions Google and Meta paying at least 4% of search or social media revenues in Canada for a minimum of $234 million. Given the approach in the regulations, that percentage is likely higher. The regulations only require that “some” of the money be spent on journalism and its approach to fair compensation means that the CBC is likely the biggest beneficiary.
5. The government’s estimates from the law are now more than 50% higher than they were less than one year ago. No other country in the world has established what amounts to a 4% link tax. In fact, the 4% figure was never discussed at committee in Canada.
6. The effect of the news link blocking in Canada has led to smaller and innovative services laying off staff or stopping all new hiring. Some report losing as much as 50% of their website traffic.
7. The CRTC has established a timeline for it to address Bill C-18 regulations that stretch into 2025. In fact, there can be no mandatory bargaining under the law until certain CRTC regulations are concluded, which it says will not happen until late 2024 or early 2025.
8. News Media Canada, the lead lobbyist for Bill C-18, has now told the government that it wants the “temporary” support measures such as the Labour Journalism Tax Credit extended and expanded. The group is seeking government tax credits equal to 35% of labour costs. When combined with the roughly 35% envisioned by Bill C-18 (in the unlikely event that both Internet companies reach agreements), the groups wants 70% of news costs paid for government or through government regulation.
9. The Canadian approach has not taken off elsewhere. A California bill was delayed until at least 2024, while a U.S. federal bill may not have sufficient support in the House of Representatives. New Zealand introduced a bill, but with an imminent election, it will not pass. Meanwhile, Australia is now preparing for the expiry of the original 2021 deals between Facebook and media outlets with many expecting that Facebook will not renew the agreements as it shifts away from news worldwide.
10. Looking ahead, there is little hope that Meta will return to news in Canada. If Google follows suit, no Internet company will be subject to Bill C-18. Even if it does reach agreement, it will not be enough to compensate for the lost revenue and traffic from Meta. In the meantime, investment in the sector has ground to a halt, Canadians have lost access to news on social media, and small and independent media are particularly hard hit. Avoiding the Canadian outcome is a now a top policy priority in other countries looking at media legislation.
Related posts:
What If It Isn’t a Bluff?!: The Consequences of the Government’s Epic Bill C-18 Miscalculation Begin to Set In
Meta to Test Blocking News Sharing on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in Response to Bill C-18’s Mandated Payments for Links
Caving on Bill C-18: Government Outlines Planned Regulations that Signal Willingness to Cast Aside Core Principles of the Online News Act
With regard to the “boycott”, it’s well worth looking into what happened when some of Facebook’s biggest global advertisers (e.g. Adidas, Ford, Pfizer, Unilever, VW, Verizon… 1000+ of them) conducted a boycott in 2020:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Facebook_ad_boycotts
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/01/business/media/facebook-boycott.html
Eric Seufert (@eric_seufert) has some great analysis on this – essentially even with such big brands it was completely meaningless as Meta has such a “long tail” of small-to-medium advertisers that this void created by these huge brands was just immediately filled by these smaller advertisers. Check out this thread:
https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1278519806065508362
So if 1000+ of the worlds biggest brands can boycott and it has zero effect on Meta, then it’s not even worth mentioning this performative nonsense organised by “FRIENDS” or called for by the Canadian government & supporters of this disastrous law. It’s not doing any damage at all to Meta, and only hurting those forgoing their exposure on Meta’s platforms.
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The FRIENDS boycott was laughable. The DayWithoutMeta boycott was a laugh riot when only 4 people managed to show support for it: https://www.freezenet.ca/like-first-two-boycotts-media-lobbys-third-meta-boycott-fails/
Good
Other countries may be telling Trudeau that they quietly support him on C18, but behind his back they are laughing at him.
I think it’s more genuine than that. I am sure he is genuinely getting the support of lots of countries that would love nothing more for themselves than for what Trudeau attempted to do here — but is clearly failing.
What Meta and Google need to do is evaluate what that support actually means to them. It means that if they cave to Canada in any way on this matter, they will be caving in the same way to all of those countries giving Canada support and will be doling money out all over the world in identical shakedowns.
Support in this context really means “Please help us shakedown these companies by finding some way out of your cock-up that means you are actually successful at extracting money from these companies”.
This “support” is all the more reason Meta and Google need to stand firm.
It’s amusing: Someone asks JustInept a question and expects to get a factual, truthful and reasoned response. What they got instead was an unverifiable “assertion from authority” that secret things were happening that support his political desires.
I’m sure that other countries have better things to do that to try to prop up JustInept’s ego.
Trudeau thinks he’s flexing when he talks about other countries supporting him on this “cause”. The reality is that even if numerous other countries are vocally supporting his cause, it wouldn’t matter. Meta has been gradually pulling out of the news link sharing business all over the world: https://www.freezenet.ca/facebook-dropping-facebook-news-in-france-uk-and-germany/
If several countries ganged up and passed their own link tax laws, Meta would just drop news links in those countries as well.
I know some out there will insist by saying things will be different once the US fully gets involved in link taxes. Well, about that: https://www.freezenet.ca/referral-traffic-from-facebook-to-news-sites-in-us-continues-to-plummet/
All link tax laws do anywhere is hasten the demise of the news sector.
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“Who Killed Hannibal” meme format:
Top panel: Eric Andre, labeled as the Liberal Party of Canada, shoots a gun, labeled The Online News Act, at Hannibal Burress, labeled Canadian News.
Bottom panel: Hannibal (Canadian News) sits dead in the chair. Eric Andre, aka the LPC, asks the viewer, “Why would Meta and Google do this?”
Mr. Geist, thanks for your articles discussing Bill C-18.
I have a question about the text of the Bill. The Bill repeated exempts the decisions of the CRTC from the Statutory Instruments Act. Perhaps this is intended to provide confidentiality to the ‘Intermediaries’ but I am more inclined to think the exemptions are intended to shut down public or parliamentary criticism. Is there a more palatable explanation?
Tom Callahan
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It is a sick backdoor way of introducing censorship under the guise of helping Canadian content creators. It would never be legal if it wasn’t disguised like this. Had it not been for the sharing and viewing of independent news on social media pre bill c-18 we may have still been locked down today.
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