Big Tech’s newest foe is the North.
The Canadian Parliament has passed The Online News Act, a law that will mandate technology companies to pay domestic news outlets for linking their articles. In response, Facebook and Instagram will pull news articles from both platforms in the country. The legislation, with a few exceptions, will force search engines and social media companies to engage in a bargaining process for licensing news content. Exactly when the law would take effect was not immediately clear as of Friday morning.
The law is the latest piece of legislation from governments worldwide aiming to force big companies like Google and Facebook to pay up for news that they share on their platforms; these tech companies have been resisting at every turn.
With some caveats, the new Canadian law would force search engines and social media companies to engage in a bargaining process — and binding arbitration, if necessary — for licensing news content for their use. Canada’s law was modeled after a similar one that passed in Australia two years ago.
“A strong, independent and free press is fundamental to our democracy,” Pablo Rodriguez, the minister of Canadian heritage in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, wrote on Twitter Thursday. “The Online News Act will help make sure tech giants negotiate fair and equitable deals with news organizations.”
Aside from Meta following up on its threat to stop making news available to Canadians if the law passed, a spokeswoman for Google called the legislation “unworkable.” Google told Canadian lawmakers in May that debate over the legislation had created unrealistic expectations among politicians and news publishers of “an unlimited subsidy for Canadian media.” In attempting to propose different solutions, Google suggested requiring tech firms to pay for “displaying” news content as opposed to linking.
This month, though, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau shot down any hopes of future compromise.
“The fact that these internet giants would rather cut off Canadians’ access to local news than pay their fair share is a real problem, and now they’re resorting to bullying tactics to try and get their way,” he told reporters. “It’s not going to work.”
