The Canadian government is considering doubling down on the disaster that was the Online News Act. Says it might charge Meta for screenshots of news.
Everything about the Online News Act has been a predictable disaster. Experts and observers like us predicted it would lead to the blocking of news links among other things. Yes, the mainstream media and the government dismissed our concerns, calling the blocking of news links a “bluff”. This based off of the disinformation that Meta depends entirely on news links to sustain their business model while calling the actions of allowing news links on their platforms “scraping” and “stealing” news content.
With evidence fully ignored and those presenting that evidence being personally attacked by government officials and the mainstream media, the predictably obvious happened. Meta began blocking news links in Canada. Traffic to news sites plummeted while traffic on Meta remained unchanged. Even the biggest, most heavily subsidized news organizations weren’t immune. News organizations experienced a string of bankruptcies while Meta’s stock value soared.
While the situation with Meta was a disaster for the entire news sector, it was potentially going to be completely catastrophic as Google was gearing up to follow suit. While it was really looking like it was going to be curtains for the entire Canadian news sector, the Canadian government freaked out, realizing they had been lied to by the news sector, and quickly folded to Google. The end result was that Google got everything they wanted and the link tax, as a concept, died.
Now, you would think that the Canadian government would look at the situation and realize what a mess they created for the entire news sector. The experts were right all along and their predictions pretty much happened to the letter. The smart thing, at that point, is to just leave everything on this front alone. An even smarter thing to do is to admit that they were wrong and rescind the law entirely so that the news sector would have a chance to heal as Meta would then be given a chance to consider letting news links back onto their platforms.
Apparently, that is too optimistic and the better prediction would have been to think that the Canadian government was working on a way to screw the situation up even further. That’s apparently what is happening right now.
One of the things that publishers have been doing over the last year was to try and circumvent the news link blocking by posting screenshots of news articles to Meta platforms like Facebook. The idea is that maybe people will read those screenshots and consider looking up the publisher to read more. It’s not an ideal solution, but one that has become a regular thing.
The stupid take on all of this from publishers is that Meta is trying to get around the Online News Act by allowing this to happen. I mean, where do you even begin with a take like this? Obviously, it’s users, including the publishers themselves, that are posting these screenshots on Meta. What’s more, blaming Meta for the actions of some of its users is completely insane. Additionally, expecting payment for news links was always a remarkably stupid idea, let alone demanding payments for screenshots being posted on top of it all. With the idea that news links is “stealing”, this is basically stupidity upon stupidity.
Yet, this is the take that the Canadian government is somehow taking. It’s like they asked “what is the dumbest take on this situation?”, saw the answer, and said, “Excellent! Let’s run with that!” I kid you not, they really are running with this take. Here’s Taylor Owen’s thoughts on this:
Now some support mandated payments for user posted screen shots of news stories. This would represent unprecedented regulation of user content and likely lead to yet more blocking. Doubling down on a failed strategy is not the answer. 2/2https://t.co/001OGzsgSO
— Michael Geist (@mgeist) August 1, 2024
The replacement of links with screenshots arguably should make Meta subject to the requirements of the Online News Act. The bill was never just about links, but about facilitating access, which screenshot clearly do.
Seriously…
University law professor, Michael Geist, of course, had a very reasonable response to this:
Now some support mandated payments for user posted screen shots of news stories. This would represent unprecedented regulation of user content and likely lead to yet more blocking. Doubling down on a failed strategy is not the answer.
If the Canadian government follows through on acting like a complete dumbass here, the consequences will be enormous. I mean, let’s run through the likely scenario of what would happen. The Canadian government starts demanding payments for screen shots (which, let’s face it, isn’t even part of the new law in the first place). Meta will rightfully point out that there is no law saying that they are required to make payments. The Canadian government then disputes this.
At this point, one of two things will happen. The first option is that this goes to court and the Canadian government invariably loses because they have no legally viable argument about any of this. Then, the Canadian government tables an amendment to the Online News Act saying that screen shots of news articles also requires payment. When that law passes, Meta either challenges this as unconstitutional or simply blocks Canada entirely, concluding that Canada was a silly place to even conduct business in in the first place.
The second option is that Meta rolls their eyes and blocks Canada entirely, telling Canadians that if they don’t like it, they can take it up with the government.
The reason for this is this: billions of pictures get uploaded to Facebook and Instagram all the time. Policing something like that is not really possible in any practical way. This especially given that the accuracy rate of blocking a picture from being uploaded would theoretically need to be 100%. As soon as one picture makes it through whatever filter is in place, then the Canadian government would charge Meta money in this ridiculous situation.
While morons will likely argue that there is no scenario where a platform would leave Canada, platforms leaving countries isn’t really anything new. Last year, for instance, Twitch left South Korea after ISPs demanded that Twitch pay for bandwidth costs. It was basically an effort for ISPs to double charge and Twitch wouldn’t have any of it (understandably).
Another example is Pornhub. That platform blocked numerous states including Nebraska, Indiana, Kentucky, Utah, Florida, and Texas among others. This over the incredibly dangerous age verification laws that risked putting people’s personal privacy at considerable risk. In fact, Pornhub is actually contemplating blocking Canada over similar laws.
The idea of Meta blocking Canada would just be one more example of platforms blocking various jurisdictions over governments passing stupid laws.
Hopefully, this is just one government official posting stupid takes on X/Twitter. If not, well, Canadians may be advised to enjoy Meta platforms while they last. Accessing something like Facebook might eventually be a thing of the past.
