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Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

nationalpost.com

191–200 of 203 posts

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I've heard this claim but it escapes me how that's true. If anything it seems closer to the opposite. Most of the CBC content I see makes the current Liberal government look quite monstrous. Fifth Estate, Marketplace, current events, and almost every debate or interview with a Liberal representative.

Simply take a look at the CBC’s latest debacle [1], where the CBC published an incredibly defamatory article against the premier of Alberta in the middle of an election. They of course just recently retracted it, but they will suffer no consequences. The CBC literally tried to pick the premier of Alberta themselves. This is just the tip of the iceberg. See also the Rosemary Barton lawsuits during the 2019 campaign fo…

You ignore all the instances of similar and worse under Harper though, eh?

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply take a look at the CBC’s latest debacle [1], where the CBC published an incredibly defamatory article against the premier of Alberta in the middle of an election. They of course just recently retracted it, but they will suffer no consequences. The CBC literally tried to pick the premier of Alberta themselves. This is just the tip of the iceberg. See also the Rosemary Barton lawsuits during the 2019 campaign fo…

You ignore all the instances of similar and worse under Harper though, eh?

What were the instances of similar and worse under Harper though? There's nothing comparable to the current liberal government - to say nothing of the $600 million slush fund for media organizations (so much for an independent press eh)

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#193
post #9

Note: This article is by the National Post, which is owned by PostMedia, who were one of the main backers of bill C18. Just something to keep in mind.

Also in addition: PostMedia (owners of the National Post) and Nordstar (owners of the Toronto Star), are apparently in talks to merge, meaning there would be even less competition and fewer major news orgs in Canada. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/toronto-star-nordstar-talks...

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#194
Goodness gracious how dumb can you be? "If you want to profit off of our news articles you have to pay us some of it!" and then, predictably, these news organizations become irrelevant overnight because nobody can see their news. Now, they want to claim Facebook is blocking news? Do these people hear themselves?

As much as I dislike Meta I'm 100% in agreement with them on this. They're being shaken down for money.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us not from Canada[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_News_Act

Not a Metà fan, at all, but I don’t understand why they are being called “unreasonable” and “irresponsible” for blocking news from Canadian newspapers. As they (currently) don’t have an agreement with Canadian newspapers, or perhaps don’t want one, which also seems like a legitimate position to me, the only responsible thing is not to use or link to articles from said newspapers, isn’t it?

The Canadian government thought they could just force these companies to subsidize their failing news industry, and instead, when the outcome is "alright, fine, you win, we won't pay you in order to make you relevant, we won't 'profit' off of your news any longer, have fun in the dumpster" they're "blocking news."

There's nothing unreasonable or irresponsible about this decision at all, what's unreasonable is passing a law trying to squeeze money out of the only places in the world left that still make you relevant and then getting mad when they don't want to be abused.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I've heard this claim but it escapes me how that's true. If anything it seems closer to the opposite. Most of the CBC content I see makes the current Liberal government look quite monstrous. Fifth Estate, Marketplace, current events, and almost every debate or interview with a Liberal representative.

Simply take a look at the CBC’s latest debacle [1], where the CBC published an incredibly defamatory article against the premier of Alberta in the middle of an election. They of course just recently retracted it, but they will suffer no consequences. The CBC literally tried to pick the premier of Alberta themselves. This is just the tip of the iceberg. See also the Rosemary Barton lawsuits during the 2019 campaign fo…

Meh, that doesn't look good, but it does seem like due process was more or less followed, and it's not really unreasonable to think it wasn't a conspiracy imo, it's no National Post or Toronto Star, and they even posted a rather favourable piece on Pollievre last year.

While there is still some degree of bias, that seems like a reach to me, and I'm nothing but a lousy centrist.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ignore all the instances of similar and worse under Harper though, eh?

What were the instances of similar and worse under Harper though? There's nothing comparable to the current liberal government - to say nothing of the $600 million slush fund for media organizations (so much for an independent press eh)

Seems like they're probably referring to muzzling Environment Canada

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ignore all the instances of similar and worse under Harper though, eh?

What were the instances of similar and worse under Harper though? There's nothing comparable to the current liberal government - to say nothing of the $600 million slush fund for media organizations (so much for an independent press eh)

https://rsf.org/en/harper-years-tough-times-reporters-canada

https://academicmatters.ca/harpers-attack-on-science-no-scie...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/canadian-scien...

They silenced Truth so they could push lies in order to maintain a war that was literally Criminal. They did the same to prop up the oil industry in the province Harper held history with and from which he personally profited and continues to profit.

They said "You're either with Us or with the Pedos" when people criticized an over reaching "justice" bill.

Again, those who oppose Trudeau now are almost exclusively those who were willfully ignorant and silent during the Harper years, mostly because they profited from the injustices which far exceeded those of Trudeau's government.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#199
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not public funds. The point is, in public they behave like FB is so horrible no reasonable person can use their services, but when it comes to using the services not for public benefit, but for their personal benefit, turn out FB is not so bad after all. Evidently, using FB is beneficial for them. They are OK with benefitting themselves, but withhold same benefits from the public in the name of political…

Yep. If they believe these platforms are cost-effective ways to advertise, then actually choosing not to use them for public funded advertising would be an abuse of public funds, unless they can explain how it is different, which I'm sure they can't.

Right. For better or worse, Meta currently gives cost-effective targeted advertising. Would be interesting to see a graph over time of Canadian govt advertising spend, split by channel (newspaper, TV, radio, online social media, email) and by outlet. I imagine OSM (and email) have cannibalized the older channels.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Local newspapers were mostly funded by their classifieds section. Local newspapers (at least in my US state) were mostly funded by their commercial ad placements, not by the classified section. Classified ad revenue and the purchase price of the paper were minority fractions of their revenue.

Most reports have classified ads at at least 1/3 of total ad revenue for newspapers. Some sources show higher but none lower.

I doubt it, esp. if you mean US newspapers; can you cite any source?

AFAIK the trend of the last 3 decades has been first Craiglist then Yahoo then FB and apps hollowed out local newspaper classified ads, especially in the US.

Here's data for 2013-2021 from US Census Service Annual Survey (SAS) for "Breakdown of Revenue by Advertising Type: Newspapers Advertising Space - Classified Advertising for Newspaper Publishers, All Establishments" [0]. Seems to show newspaper classified revenue is seriously sliding. If we only saw the numbers for local newspapers, probably even worse.

[0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPCNCAEF51111ALLEST

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