The End of the Virtual Land of the Free

[IKnowNothing]

I have read over Bill C-18, but honestly it’s not a space I really understand all that well.

Thank You for explaining it in layman’s terms, I think I have a much better grasp of it now.


My question still stands though .. is this bill creating a whole lot of headaches for everybody involved? Is it really needed? Do other countries have something similar in place?

Australia did essentially the same thing, and faced essentially the same fight -
News Media Bargaining Code - Wikipedia

 

[CBH99]

Australia did essentially the same thing, and faced essentially the same fight -
News Media Bargaining Code - Wikipedia

This feels like a Hydra thing?? (Sorry, WEF…)

 

[Spencer100]

This feels like a Hydra thing?? (Sorry, WEF…)

In the end its all about getting money to media companies that are Liberal (or old red Tory) friendly. Its not about getting money to the Rebel news or even the Tyee. Its old fashion rent seeking with a most favored nation clause.

I hate Meta and Google too but this in not the answer. Plus they want this bill at the time the Government of Canada is one of the largest ad buyers in Meta and Google. They just can't shoot straight.

 

[CBH99]

In the end its all about getting money to media companies that are Liberal (or old red Tory) friendly. Its not about getting money to the Rebel news or even the Tyee. Its old fashion rent seeking with a most favored nation clause.

I hate Meta and Google too but this in not the answer. Plus they want this bill at the time the Government of Canada is one of the largest ad buyers in Meta and Google. They just can't shoot straight.

They also want this bill right around the same time as they want Bill C-11…

Coincidence they want Google & Meta to pay news companies for their content at the same time they want to be the ones who control what news content we can see?

(Maybe I am being paranoid…but sometimes isn’t right here. Feels like subversion happening behind the scenes.)


(The news companies already make money off of advertising, classifieds, and subscriptions from paying customers…it seems odd the LPC would all of a sudden care about how those companies generate their revenue, no?)

 

[Halifax Tar]

(The news companies already make money off of advertising, classifieds, and subscriptions from paying customers…it seems odd the LPC would all of a sudden care about how those companies generate their revenue, no?)

Not if you are a member of or supporter of the LPC and its "vision" (and yes I use that term loosely).

 

[Spencer100]

They also want this bill right around the same time as they want Bill C-11…

Coincidence they want Google & Meta to pay news companies for their content at the same time they want to be the ones who control what news content we can see?

(Maybe I am being paranoid…but sometimes isn’t right here. Feels like subversion happening behind the scenes.)


(The news companies already make money off of advertising, classifieds, and subscriptions from paying customers…it seems odd the LPC would all of a sudden care about how those companies generate their revenue, no?)

Well of course its all related.

But the old media companies are losing tons of money. Toronto Star is bleeding money. Post too. Etc.

The Liberals and the old Tories get their living from the old friendly media. They hang in the same circles. Look at GG and Senate appointments. A reporters career dream was to move from the local beat to the national get close to Liberal insiders then government job and easy street. The internet is busting that. Plus now there are new interlopers doing stuff in their basements. Can't have that. These bills are 100% designed to lock in the current the control.

But I will give you one area in media in Canada that does need something is local news reporting. What the answer to that is I don't know but this bills do not fix that.

 

[IKnowNothing]

This feels like a Hydra thing?? (Sorry, WEF…)

Lack of merit for bill itself aside, I see this more as jockeying between nation states and nation state sized multinationals. EU pushed back in a broader way with the DMA/DSA, we still don't know how that will shake out. The EU has a lot more combined mass than Canada or Australia on it's own though.

This might not be the right fight, but a fight needs to be had.

 

[Spencer100]

Lack of merit for bill itself aside, I see this more as jockeying between nation states and nation state sized multinationals. EU pushed back in a broader way with the DMA/DSA, we still don't know how that will shake out. The EU has a lot more combined mass than Canada or Australia on it's own though.

This might not be the right fight, but a fight needs to be had.

Yes but this is not the way. We have Anti Trust laws and competition laws. The governments have forgotten how to use them. In Canada my dealing with the competition board is a joke.

Then again the beauty of capitalism is that is if not screwed with is self correcting. Watch Meta and Zuck today. They are in full on backtracking. 10,000 more jobs are going and everyone back at the office. Maybe they will find out last five years of censorship was not a good idea. (maybe they won't) Facebook is becoming a ghost town.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Search engine companies pay for the software and infrastructure necessary to crawl the world wide web in order to index all the accessible content (subject to directives which may be included in web pages to deprecate indexation and crawling), and to assess (and rank) the accessible content for (primarily) relevance. Then they provide access to the indexed, ranked content via search engines. The frequency with which results are chosen (popularity) in turn affects rank.

That service is what makes most of the web accessible to us. Without the search engine companies, we would know only the domain addresses (very, very few pure IP addresses any more) of web sites passed along to us, discovered by us, or linked by sites we already know.

That service is also what makes most of the web usable to many - perhaps most - content providers. Except for the obviously well-known site owners, without search engines it would be an extraordinarily hard lift for anyone else to get any visibility.

Search engine companies and many other web site owners generate ad revenue by serving ads (including ads in their own pages) and collecting information to verify the number of impressions served and the number of click-throughs. (Note that an impression is counted regardless whether a user actually reads anything on the served page.) Those are the basis for billing the ad owners. If the search engine provides a useful service so that many people use it, its revenues improve. If a web site provides useful content so that many people use it, its revenues improve.

So "big media" sites are in the same situation as every other web site owner attempting to generate revenue from ads: produce content people want to read. Note that this is not the same mission as providing content they want people to read.

Without search engine companies, "big media" web sites, along with everyone else without other sources of revenue to pay for their web presence, would most likely collapse. Search engine companies are already providing a free and valuable service to every web site owner.

The first thing to sort out in this debate, then, is whether the service provided by search engine companies to media companies (steering web traffic) is worth more or less than whatever it is media companies think they are owed for content. I can guess that without search engines serving up multiple results for the issue of the day, people would be much less likely to go to more than one or two web pages; thus the total numbers of ad impressions would fall off; thus that part of ad revenues would fall off.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Listening to some Youtubers out there, some were pulling in around $27,000 a month on their most popular videos from ad revenue (in example a guy who installed a solar roof), generally the cash from a video follows a bell curve. Now YT has changed many of the rules so they they keep more of the cash and the content creators get much less. Hence the requests to support through Patreon.

 

[Good2Golf]

Maybe Bing will have an increase in traffic after all these decades years?

 

[Spencer100]

Maybe Bing will have an increase in traffic after all these decades years?

The bill C18 would apply to them also.

The biggest disappointment about the internet has been the Network Effect...the internet was to be a great democratic movement bring info and data from accross the world and have a leveling effect. In reality it creates one or maybe two winners in all verticals. We have just two mobile system OS2, one search engine, one online everything store, just a couple social networks. Etc.

 

[FJAG]

The bill C18 would apply to them also.

The biggest disappointment about the internet has been the Network Effect...the internet was to be a great democratic movement bring info and data from accross the world and have a leveling effect. In reality it creates one or maybe two winners in all verticals. We have just two mobile system OS2, one search engine, one online everything store, just a couple social networks. Etc.

The software is immaterial. If anything having limited software ensures a common platform that all can access.

The issue is content. We do have access to unbelievable content. Unfortunately people choose garbage and revel in it. IMHO - blame the wetware. If anything the system is enabling us to get leveled alright but, unfortunately, we're heading for the lowest common denominator.

 

[Good2Golf]

Ottawa, Quebec halt advertising on Facebook, Instagram over Bill C-18 standoff

Quebecor and Cogeco, along with the City of Montreal, are also suspending advertising on Meta in response to the company’s plans to block Canadian news

www.theglobeandmail.com

Government of Canada and NDP and BQ send a strong message to Meta/Facebook!

(Spoiler alert: LPC, not so much… )

While Mr. Rodriguez spoke positively of Quebecor’s decision to also stop advertising on Meta, he declined to say whether the Liberal Party would follow the government’s move.

Advertising on Facebook is a key element of modern political campaigns, in part because parties can target messages to specific demographics.

Parker Lund, a spokesperson for the Liberal Party, told The Globe Wednesday that the party is not changing its policy.

“We will continue to advertise on Meta platforms,” he said.

 

[CBH99]

Ottawa, Quebec halt advertising on Facebook, Instagram over Bill C-18 standoff

Quebecor and Cogeco, along with the City of Montreal, are also suspending advertising on Meta in response to the company’s plans to block Canadian news

www.theglobeandmail.com

Government of Canada and NDP and BQ send a strong message to Meta/Facebook!

(Spoiler alert: LPC, not so much… )

So the Government of Canada will not advertise on Facebook/Meta due to them not wanting to be bothered to navigate our internet legislation nonsense...

But the LPC will continue to advertise on those same platforms?



At least they are consistent about being inconsistent!

 

[OldSolduer]

So the Government of Canada will not advertise on Facebook/Meta due to them not wanting to be bothered to navigate our internet legislation nonsense...

But the LPC will continue to advertise on those same platforms?



At least they are consistent about being inconsistent!

I’m sure the Zuck is shaking in his boots. Or sneakers .

 

[Eaglelord17]

There are a lot of media companies against this bill as well. As one put it in a article on their website 50% of their traffic came from social media and 30% came from search engines like google. How does it make sense to charge the main source of revenue for themselves?

This isn’t the same as Australia, they changed their bill as it was going through. When our government was told its not workable the response they gave is how dare you question our poorly written and thought out law.

Hell to figure out some info on Australias law I googled it, if anything the news agencies should be paying them.

 

[dimsum]

Maybe Bing will have an increase in traffic after all these decades years?

Depends on how their ChatGPT equivalent does, I guess.

 

[OldSolduer]

I’m watching Pablo telling reporters about being intimidated and Fidel I mean Justin calling out FB.

This is A distraction from the real problem- China.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I don't know what all the hoopla is. Other than what the red and orange are trying to censure. I don't know what kind of person would be getting their Canadian news from FaceBook or Google, but if I were inclined to look, I'd just go directly to the news site. Get it off their own platform.

If I gave it any thought, I might think that the coalition did this on purpose. Knowing that Google and FB wouldn't go for it, our overseers get to limit what you see without looking like the bad guys.

I use Qwant and Brave to search. Never used Bing and haven't used Google forever.