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The Online News Act Is Now Officially In Effect. But Is It Working?
On December 19th, the government's much debated and for some long awaited Online News Act officially came into effect in Canada. The feds dodged a bullet earlier this season, when a deal for compensation was reached with Google, but Meta still remains offline for news here.
But experts disagree on whether this thing has - or will work - to help its intended beneficiaries, especially newspapers.
"What many called a “game of chicken” between Big Tech and the Canadian government resulted in a bailout much lower than the hoped-for $179 million. Other unintended consequences include views of Canadian news dropping 90 per cent, a local news outlet “slowing down over the next while” due to a drastic drop in traffic, Canadians’ lives at risk when they were without reliable news during wildfire emergencies, and less reliable information while disinformation spreads."
Given how hard the media here fought for this thing, I'm surprised there isn't more coverage of its official launch.
The Online News Act Is in Force. How We Got Here, What’s Next
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Re: The Online News Act Is Now Officially In Effect. But Is It Working?
The former Vice Chair of the CRTC argues that the Online News Act was riddled with problems right from the start, doesn't achieve its goals and isn't quite the boon for broadcasters it was supposed to be. And they're not done looking for new sources of loot.
"The Act resulted in Meta blocking all news links in Canada on Facebook and Instagram. Again, the exact cost is unknown but the social media company had been spending $18 million on journalism supports plus—and here is the killer—Meta estimated it had been sending $230 million a year worth of referrals to news websites.
Even if Meta is only half right, that still leaves the news industry many tens of millions of dollars worse off. If Meta’s estimate is accurate—and no one has really debunked it—the scenario is a lot uglier.
This is what happens when you make things up."
The government surrenders to reality with rewritten Online News Act—and pleases no one
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