My Globe and Mail op-ed opens by noting that after years of dismissing the warnings of likely retaliation, the Canadian government caved to U.S. pressure earlier this week as it cancelled the digital services tax. Faced with the U.S. suspension of trade negotiations, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that the government would rescind the legislation that created it.
Post Tagged with: "c-18"
New Era and New Risks: Meta’s Content Moderation Reforms and Freedom of Expression Online
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday announced significant new changes to the company’s content moderation policies. The five-minute video is worth watching in its entirety, as it demonstrates the shifting political sands that seemingly pressured even the world’s largest social media company to pay heed. Zuckerberg said the company’s reliance on third-party fact checkers had resulted in too much censorship and vowed to return to an emphasis on freedom of expression. That means the fact checkers are gone, replaced by the Twitter (X) model of community notes. Moreover, the company is moving its content moderation team from California to Texas (a nod to claims the California-based teams were biased), increasing the amount of political content in user feeds, and pledging to work with the Trump administration to combat content regulation elsewhere, including in Europe and South America.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 221: Inside My Canadian Heritage Committee Appearance on Freedom of Expression
The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage has for the past month been conducting a study on protecting freedom of expression. The counters of the study aren’t entirely clear. In fact, after I was invited to appear, I asked for some sense of what the committee was looking to address. There wasn’t much detail, which has really left it open for witnesses to cover whatever issues they like. I chose to focus my time on two issues: the expression implications of Canadian digital policy and the chilling effect of antisemitism. The two issues have really dominated my attention in recent months. Digital policy – including Bills C-11, C-18, C-63, and S-210 for years now and the antisemitism issues an enormous concern post October 7, 2023.
This week’s Law Bytes podcast takes the listener into the hearing room and the wide range of questions from Liberal, Conservative, and Bloc MPs my opening statement sparked.
CRTC Approves Google’s $100 Million Online News Act Exemption Deal
The government’s deeply flawed attempt to force tech platforms to pay Canadian news outlets for linking to news is nearing its payout. The CRTC this week formally exempted Google from negotiating individual agreements and facing a potential mandated arbitration system in return for a lump sum $100 million annual payment. The $100 million deal was the government’s last ditch attempt to salvage the Online News Act as its insistence that tech platforms would never walk away from news proved to be disastrously wrong. Within weeks of the former Bill C-18 receiving royal assent in June 2023, Meta blocked news links on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. The block has remained in place for more than a year, causing significant harm to news outlets and sparking a CRTC investigation into whether user attempts to evade the block bring the company within the scope of the law.
Is Meta Offside the Online News Act? The CRTC Wants to Know.
Meta has blocked news links on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for more than a year in response to the Online News Act, resulting in significant lost traffic to many Canadian news sites. The company’s position has been pretty clear from the start: the law applies to digital news intermediaries that make “news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada.” By blocking news links, the company believes that it falls outside the definition and therefore is not required to register with the CRTC and enter into negotiations for payments to Canadian news outlets. After Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge repeatedly urged the CRTC to examine the issue, this week the Commission sent a letter to Meta giving it seven days to comment on “what measures Meta is taking to comply with the Act, and whether news is being made available on Meta’s platforms.”
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