The CBC today is complaining that political parties are spending advertising on American platforms. This as they do the very same thing.
With the Canadian federal election in full swing, news organizations, including the CBC, have been presenting themselves as a trustworthy source because they “cut through the noise” an present the facts so that viewers can make the best possible decision for this election. Yet, a recent so-called “fact check” segment that was broadcast today left me stunned with just how bad it was.
So, to set the stage here, Canadian’s are looking to buy Canadian in light of the insane tariffs by a crazed fascist dictator south of the border. What’s more, Canadian businesses are responding by putting Canadian maple leaf labelling on some of their products. Are those labels accurate? Who knows? That isn’t the subject of this article. Politicians are also encouraging the “buy Canadian” approach as well. So far, so good. Nothing to really complain about here.
Today, however, out of nowhere, the CBC decided to run a “fact check” segment on this. Why they chose to do this, I’m not entirely sure. Still, that was their choice. How they chose to do this is even more baffling. They decided to investigate each political party and their spending on Meta. It’s obvious why they chose Meta for this because Meta publishes a transparency report on all advertisers through their Google Ad library. This makes researching much easier.
The thinking, I’m presuming, is that if politician’s are pushing for a boycott of American businesses and services, then why are they spending ad dollars on these platforms? The problem with that is actually a monopoly one. If you are going to be advertising online to reach a large audience, you have two choices: Google Ads and Facebook advertising. There’s literally no one else that has a massively broad reach like that and, even then, there are very few, if any, alternatives out there. We know this because we looked ourselves and couldn’t find a suitable replacement ad network for Google Adsense. In 2021, TechDirt also looked for a replacement ad network to replace their Adsense and ended up being unable to find one. TechDirt, of course, has far more resources than we do and they couldn’t do it either. Advertising is generally a monopoly between the two companies and even if you want to buck the trend, it’s difficult to impossible to do even if you wanted to since so many other so-called “ad networks” rely on Google’s advertising networks.
At best, the federal politicians can vow to work with the private sector to create a Canadian variation of this ad network, but beyond that, there really isn’t anything they can do about it and they need their advertisements to reach audiences now.
If you can believe it, though, the CBC’s so-called “fact check team” managed to make the segment even worse. You can view this segment here and it is truly remarkable how bad it truly is.
In the first few seconds of the clip, the reporter ran through the advertising numbers for ad spending by various political parties. In and of itself, not problematic. The problems start at around 30 seconds into the video. They mention that the Bloc continued advertising which brought an end to the boycott of Meta in response to Meta’s decision to block news links in response to the Federal government’s link tax law known as the Online News Act. Here, the reporter basically pushed Big Lie 1.0 and Big Lie 2.0 in rapid succession. It’s impressive because both lies contradict each other. Here’s a transcript of what the reporter said which really has to be read to be believed:
… a decision that came in the wake of Meta’s ban on sharing Canadian news sources including CBC News, which was, in turn, a response to the Liberal governments Bill C-18, the Online News Act which mandated compensation to media outlets for the use of their content.
The gymnastics to get the facts wrong with that partial run on sentence is staggering. The reporter was truly lying his ass off here. While I basically fact checked this in my articles of Big Lie 1.0 and Big Lie 2.0, here’s the gist of it:
It’s the media companies themselves that were posting those news articles on platforms. A lions share of all the posts linking to news content come from the media companies themselves. This is done to drive traffic to the publishers who receive a major benefit in the form of additional traffic, subscriptions, and more. What the media companies actually did was demand payments even though they are the ones that are benefiting from this. This is contrary to the false claims by media companies that linking is stealing which really doesn’t need explanation as to why that is a blatant lie.
Meta, in response, pointed out that publishers receive $230 million in value every year and that they benefit little from news content. The mainstream media outlets went into denial and said that Meta couldn’t possibly survive without links to their news content and convinced the Liberal party to push this terrible law through anyway.
Meta, in response, blocked news links in Canada because they derive so little benefit from allowing such content. As a result, the Online News Act blew up in the faces of the mainstream media and the Federal government. Traffic to news sites like the CBC plummeted as the broader media sector took a major hit to their bottom line, bankrupting multiple news organizations in the process. Seeing the entire sector tanking, the Federal government folded to Google to prevent the entire news sector from going under. This as federal bailed out the mainstream media to try and fill in the massive financial gaps they incurred from their total stupidity in the matter. In short, the mainstream media’s greed bit them in the rear and required the government to intervene and financially rescue the media companies after (even as the argument was that this was supposed to not cost taxpayers money). That’s what really happened.
So, how is this contradictory? Well, on the one hand, the reporter is basically saying that Meta is stealing from them by allowing news links on their platform. As a result, as the argument goes, they are demanding compensation. At the same time, they are arguing that dropping news links is censorship and that they have every right to advertise their sites on Meta platforms by posting news links. So, what is it? Do they want their content on Meta platforms or do they not? In short, they are demanding platforms free money for the privilege of sending them traffic. It is as insane today as it was back then.
About a minute and a half into the video, the reporter noted that even Elections Canada is spending money on Meta advertising. I’m not sure how this supports any argument in any of this, but he had no problem throwing that in there.
Now, the question is this: why bring this whole thing up in the first place? That is really not all that clear. It wasn’t in response to any one political party saying something that requires fact checking in the first place. Normally, if you are running a fact check, it is in response to something said specifically. So, if there was something said by a politician specifically about online advertising, then maybe there would be a basis for this news piece. The problem is, even the segment itself doesn’t cite anyone saying this.
What you could have done is just done a piece on how much political parties are spending on advertising. I don’t see what is wrong with that. Shoehorning the debate of the Online News Act alone with the “buy Canada” sentiment is just extremely bizarre.
Specifically about bringing up the Online News Act, that was a really bizarre choice. The debate is generally over and the news companies lost that fight. Meta dropped news links and the Canadian government surrendered to Google’s demands. There are no other online platforms that this fight involved. Yes, the legislation is being implemented at the CRTC at this point in time, but the debate is functionally over at this point in time.
Even worse, however, is the fact that this complaint by the CBC is extremely hypocritical. Here we see the CBC directly complaining about how political parties are spending advertising dollars on American based platforms, yet the CBC, itself, is spending advertising dollars on American online platforms. According to the YouTube advertising transparency report, the CBC is spending big on YouTube advertising, the very same crime that the organization is complaining about with the political party.
In all, the report shows that the CBC is running roughly 600 ads on Google’s platforms. A couple of examples of ads currently being shown are this:
Advertisement 1
Advertisement 2
Advertisement 3
Advertisement 4
Advertisement 5
(I could go on, but you get the point)
As of this writing, all of these ads are currently running today and it is likely more will be running tomorrow. So, here we see the CBC shelling out the big bucks for advertising on American based platforms in their glass houses while, at the same time, throwing stones at all the political parties for spending money on advertising on American based platforms. It’s pure hypocrisy.
To further punctuate the point, the CBC is also posting their content on YouTube. This while turning on advertising which means that they are not only creating engagement with a major American online platform, but also taking out advertising where Google gets a cut of the money on top of it all. So, they are generating revenue for YouTube in at least two ways (arguably three if you count the added interactivity on the part of the user on the platform).
All of this should give the CBC fact checkers a major black eye. There was no need to bring up the Online News Act at this point in time. They weren’t really fact-checking any specific claim by a politician. What’s more, they pushed obvious disinformation in a so-called “fact check” segment that can be easily debunked. On top of it all, the CBC is committing the very “crime” they are accusing others of doing. It’s egregious and extremely stupid. I have no idea what the heck the CBC was thinking here.
