Post Tagged with: "c-18"

Facebook app by Eduardo Woo https://flic.kr/p/pfd7yn (CC BY-SA 2.0)

CRTC Says No Regulatory Action Planned Against Meta For Blocking News Links

In the months leading up to the effective date of the Online News Act, then-Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge urged the CRTC to investigate Meta’s decision to block news links on its Facebook and Instagram platforms as its method of compliance. Pointing to reports of people screenshotting news articles and the use of other workarounds the blocking of news links that came in response to the Online News Act (Bill C-18), St-Onge said “I cant wait to see what the CRTC will do when the law is fully enforced on Dec. 19.” As the law took effect and the issue grew, the CRTC did indeed send Meta a letter in October 2024 asking for information on how the company was complying with the legislation. I wrote about this request soon afterward, providing a detailed analysis of the law that sought to explain why some news sites might fall outside the scope of the legislation along with the legal grey area of screenshots.

This week, the CRTC finally responded to Meta on the issue.

December 4, 2025 — 0 comments — News

Y U no pay taxes? by Duncan Cumming https://flic.kr/p/j1oNYe CC BY-NC 2.0

Canada’s DST Debacle a Case Study of Digital Strategy Trouble

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.

July 3, 2025 — 4 comments — Columns

President Trump Meets with Mark Zuckerberg by Official White House Photo by Joiyce N. Boghosian https://flic.kr/p/2hida5y PDM 1.0

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.

January 8, 2025 — 4 comments — News

Committee Room, West Block by Sean Marshall CC BY-NC 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/2hjUQcA

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.

December 2, 2024 — 1 comment — Podcasts

The News by Taymaz Valley CC BY 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/2k6i7AS

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.

October 31, 2024 — 7 comments — News