Post Tagged with: "facebook"

Mark Zuckerberg F8 2019 Keynote by Anthony Quintano https://flic.kr/p/2fMDgqa CC BY 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 217: David Fraser on the Privacy Implications of the Federal Court of Appeal’s Facebook Ruling

It has been many years since the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal captured headlines. The services at the heart of the case no longer exist, but the legal case in Canada continues to march on. Last month, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision that had largely sided with Facebook. In its place, it released a new decision that includes and analysis of reasonableness under the Canadian privacy law and engages with the notion of a potential trust but verify standard in some cases when data is transferred to third parties.

 The case may not be over yet, but the latest decision has big implications for privacy in Canada. David Fraser, one of Canada’s leading privacy practitioners with McInnes Cooper and the creator a popular Youtube channel on privacy law, joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide the background on the case, assess the key findings, and consider what may come next.

Read more ›

October 28, 2024 4 comments Podcasts
Facebook Bill C-18 notice

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.”

Read more ›

October 9, 2024 18 comments News
Reality Check by aldrea https://flic.kr/p/58ncUm (CC BY-NC 2.0)

A Reality Check on the Online News Act: Why Bill C-18 Has Been a Total Policy Disaster

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:

Read more ›

September 20, 2023 19 comments News
Instagram notification re: Bill C18

Why Is Meta Blocking All News Links? Because Bill C-18 Covers All News Outlets

Blocking of news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada has becomes increasingly widespread in recent days, leading to a growing number of public comments from media outlets and reporters expressing surprise or shock about the scope of the link blocking. Indeed, outlets with blocked links include university student newspapers, radio stations, and foreign news outlets. While there may have been some errors (Facebook has a page to seek review of any blocked link decision), the inclusion of a very wide range of Canadian and foreign news outlets is no accident. Rather, it reflects the government’s Bill C-18 approach, which effectively covers all news outlets worldwide whose links are accessed in Canada. The Canadian government could have adopted a more targeted approach – for example, limiting the scope to news links from those news outlets eligible to negotiate agreements with Internet platforms under the law – but it instead went for the broadest possible approach that includes foreign news outlets with little or no connection to Canada.

Read more ›

August 11, 2023 42 comments News
Facebook app by Eduardo Woo https://flic.kr/p/pfd7yn (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Media Publishers File Flawed Competition Act Application Over Meta Blocking News Links Due to Bill C-18

As the fallout from Bill C-18 continues, a coalition of Canadian media outlets – News Media Canada, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, and the CBC – have filed an application with the Competition Bureau seeking an inquiry into Meta’s decision to block news links in response to the bill’s mandated payments for links approach. There is unquestionably a need for greater competition work with respect to Internet platforms, but a case grounded in refusal to link is not the place to start. Indeed, this complaint is exceptionally weak as it misstates Bill C-18, implausibly claims that Meta has substantial control over the news industry in Canada, contradicts the government on the choices presented by its legislation, and risks creating a mandated requirement to link that could result in other sectors forcing platforms to display more contentious content.

Read more ›

August 8, 2023 13 comments News