I’ve posted a fair bit of links around Bill C18 and how it’s bad, and had people assume that I’m somehow on the side of Google & Facebook. Moscrop does a good job explaining that literally everyone involved here is bad, but that it does need fixing. > we ought to accept a few things: the Online News Act is bad law that needs to be amended or scrapped, Google and Meta are not your friends, we need to find a way to save journalism, some (legacy) media companies are awful themselves, and we need to reign in the tech giants and force them to pay for what they extract from their workers and from us.

Michael Geist's commentary on [Google removing corporate media from Search and News](https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiatives/an-update-on-canadas-bill-c-18-and-our-search-and-news-products/) > That surely presented an unwelcome choice either way: agree to flawed legislation that creates a dangerous precedent on paying for links or knowingly decrease the value of its own service. By choosing to block links, the damage will be felt across Canada. For the news sector, this could result in news outlets shutting down altogether as the combined effect of blocked news links and news sharing on the Google and Meta will cut some sites traffic in half and lead to huge revenue losses. Services with existing deals with likely see that revenue disappear as well. For Canadians, Google search will be less reliable with Canadian news links removed and the Google News service shut down. **This is likely to increase reliance on foreign news services and lower-quality services at the precise time that concerns over misinformation continue to grow.** (emphasis mine) Previous post by [Michael Geist: Media Chaos](https://news.cosocial.ca/post/6241)

> The Online News Act may be only days removed from having received royal assent, but the government’s plans to support the Canadian media sector have already backfired spectacularly. While it claimed its Bill C-18 would add millions of dollars to the sector and support struggling media companies, the reality has quickly intervened: [blocked news sharing on Internet platforms with cancelled deals on the horizon](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/meta-google-rodriguez-bill-c18-1.6890248), reports of direct [corporate intervention](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-top-bell-media-executive-urged-ctv-to-avoid-negative-spin-of-bce-and/) in news departments, massive layoffs and regulatory requests to [decrease spending on news](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-bell-asks-crtc-to-drop-local-news-requirements-after-mass-layoffs-2/), and now a [nightmare merger proposal between Postmedia and Torstar](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-postmedia-metroland-merger-torstar/). And that is just over the past week. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has amply demonstrated that there is no Plan B, offering up the prospect of further dependence on government through [more public spending](https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2023/06/27/more-newsroom-resources-on-the-table-should-meta-google-block-local-news-rodriguez/) to mitigate the harms from his massive miscalculations. Not all of this is the government’s doing, but having relied on empty assurances that blocked news sharing was merely a bluff, Rodriguez picked politics and tough talk over good policy and is now left with media chaos.

This was OpenMedia’s fix Bill C-18 campaign. It’s unclear if any of this was fixed when it got passed. > Right now, most of the funding goes straight into the pockets of large broadcast media like Corus, Rogers and the CBC. Newspapers? Minority players. Local news that’s already disappeared? Zero help. Startup outlets? Not included. Effective news support should be concentrated on where news is fast disappearing, not on broadcast outlets that don’t need the help.2,3 > > What about press independence? As written, Bill C-18 hands enormous power to Big Tech and to the CRTC to secretly shape the type of news that gets made in Canada. News organizations enter into secret deals with platforms to get funding; there's no public reporting on who receives funds, how much they’re receiving, or why some groups wind up approved while others are rejected.4 That’s not good enough. Transparency about who’s funding the news and how they reached their deal is vital for the public to maintain trust in the news industry.5 Any legislation must ensure that eligibility decisions are made publicly, transparently, and without government or platform pressure.

TechDirt’s Mike Masnick gets it exactly right in covering Canada’s C-18 bill: > If you believe in the open web, if you believe that you should never have to pay to link to something, if you believe that no one should have to pay to provide you a benefit, then you should support Meta’s stance here. Yes, it’s self-serving for Meta. Of course it is. But, even if it’s by accident, or a side-effect, it’s helping to defend the open web, against a ridiculous attack from an astoundingly ignorant and foolish set of Canadian politicians. And just generally points out the huge holes in Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez understanding from the Power & Politics Interview.

[@evan](https://news.cosocial.ca/u/evan) posts on Mastodon: > The conjunction of Bill C-18 in Canada with the rumoured release of an ActivityPub-enabled service from Meta seems incredibly fortuitous. > > I will now shout for those in the back of the room. > > MEDIA COMPANIES IN CANADA: NOW IS THE TIME TO SET UP YOUR SITE ON THE FEDIVERSE. > > YOUR SITE, YOUR RULES. REACH YOUR AUDIENCE DIRECTLY.