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Seeding control of the mainstream media narrative over this silly law is going to have hilarious implications for the future of the Canadian government. Most importantly, it's now 10x harder to control the narrative and for the government to manufacture consent.
This here is the most concerning part. The government is making shady back room deals with large corporations. If I had to guess the nature of the deals is "we won't enforce anything or make you pay anything if you agree to ensure that stories that paint the government in an unfavorable light don't stick around."
Even if that's not what the deal is like now that is what it is going to turn into.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you analyze news as a product, it’s entirely reasonable for Facebook to refuse a price they don’t think is worth it. If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, as it was taught to me in school - then it does start to look unreasonable. The Canadian government is simply equivocating between these two analyses as it suits them (one could ask, if acc…
> If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, I don't get it - in this analysis would my local coffee shop have to buy and provide free newspapers to me? I'm all for access to free press being a fundamental right. Where you lose me is the part where a private corporation is supposed to subsidize the production of news for me.
I'm not sure I'd want my government spending money on ads anyway.
The government needs to get out messages to its citizens. If ads on facebook is more cost effective than sending out mailers or whatever, why shouldn't they spend money on facebook ads?
Remember the Phenix pay system? It was an IBM project that was supposed to save us 70 million a year, instead they paid IBM an additional 2+ BILLION to try and fix the broken crap they'd delivered. Never even worked, they're currently taking bids to replace it already.
80% of public servants had pay issues, many were foreclosed on because they couldn't pay their mortgages, someone even killed themselves.
And we expect the Canadian government to accurately determine ROI on digital ad spend? That's hard enough for skilled people in the space (some who have found it to have no effect altogether). Our government is simply going to be fleeced for every penny they have (and then some).
Remember, these are the same people who shut down the CRA website every night. Can't even access your tax info after hours.
> Facebook has decided to be unreasonable, irresponsible, and started blocking news. Are they acting unreasonably though? There is a product, and the government rules it has a price. Isn't Facebook allowed to go, sorry, I don't like that price?
If you analyze news as a product, it’s entirely reasonable for Facebook to refuse a price they don’t think is worth it. If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, as it was taught to me in school - then it does start to look unreasonable. The Canadian government is simply equivocating between these two analyses as it suits them (one could ask, if acc…
Okay, but facebook is really ubiquitous so that makes it different... How is this any different from... the one grocery store in town removing their newspaper rack? It's the one grocery store, everybody in town shops there so that makes it super important or something. But the newspapers are still free to mail their newspaper to everybody's front door. They still have their websites too, anybody who wants to read those newspapers can still do so.
I'm not sure I'd want my government spending money on ads anyway.
The TLDR of this issue: Canadian govt: When someone posts a link to a news article on Facebook, that is like stealing from that news publisher. Facebook: Your logic makes no sense, but okay, we will stop doing that. Govt: No, we don't want you to stop posting the links, we want you to pay a fee every time someone posts a link. Facebook: No thank you. Govt: You're bullying us and behaving irresponsibly! We won't stand…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, I don't get it - in this analysis would my local coffee shop have to buy and provide free newspapers to me? I'm all for access to free press being a fundamental right. Where you lose me is the part where a private corporation is supposed to subsidize the production of news for me.
Meta is not your local coffee shop.