Preventing LGBTQ content discrimination raised in BTLR consults

The CEO of an independent specialty TV channel is raising concerns that a lack of regulation could let foreign-based digital companies operating in Canada de-monetize or discriminate against types of Canadian content based on cultural values, such as works made by the LGBTQ community. Brad Danks, the CEO of OUTtv Network Inc., a Canadian-based LGBTQ television network, raised the point in his company’s consultation submission to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel -- the expert group studying how to modernize Canada’s communications legal and regulatory framework. The submission points to a case from last year where this happened, when a “very large” U.S.-based technology company came under fire for “de-monetizing LGBTQ content.” “It was rumoured that they were giving into pressure from advertisers who were being attacked by extremists when their ads appeared next to LGBTQ content,” it said. “As most of this advertising is programmatic, it was believed that the company simply changed their algorithm to avoid the issue. All of this took months to discover and for a correction to take place. The company did finally admit they were wrong and apologized, but the lost revenue was never replaced.” It’s a story that sounds a lot like when Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube drew ire from the LGBTQ content creation community after users complained their videos were being restricted by “age and content restrictions, anti-LGBT ads, and have had their videos demonetized or stripped of ads altogether, allegedly because words like ‘trans’ or ‘transgender’ are in their titles,” according to a Verge article about YouTube apologizing for “inappropriate ads and concerns about how we’re enforcing our monetization policy.” The OUTtv submission never specifies which company it was referencing and, when contacted, Danks wouldn’t confirm or deny it was YouTube. OUTtv itself doesn’t have a large YouTube presence, but the point it’s raising goes much further than one company or incident, and anticipates entry of more foreign-based competition in Canada’s broadcasting system as new over-the-top services launch. “This US company operates unregulated in Canada. We have companies poised to enter from other countries like China as well. If this issue fell under Canadian regulations then the technology company would expect it as the price they pay for operating in Canada,” the submission said. “Absent regulation, we become subject to the values of other countries, whether they conflict with ours or not.” In all, it was actually a small part of Dank’s submission. Most of the ink OUTtv printed on its brief makes a case against vertical integration and for tamping down against “monopolization and the forces of anti-competition.”

Preventing LGBTQ content discrimination raised in BTLR consults

Brief | January 21, 2019

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Preventing LGBTQ content discrimination raised in BTLR consults

Brief | January 21, 2019

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