Facebook denounces Online News Act as it finally appears at committee

Meta Platforms Inc., parent company of Facebook, came out swinging against Bill C-18, the Online News Act, on Friday. The firm finally appeared before the House of Commons Committee on Canadian Heritage after lobbying for an invitation. “The framework of the current legislation presumes that Meta unfairly benefits from its relationship with publishers when in fact the reverse is true,” Kevin Chan, global policy director of Meta, told the MPs. “We think the platform helps publishers.” He pointed out that publishers voluntarily post their content on Facebook and are thus able to increase subscriptions and advertising. The company estimates they generate 1.9 billion clicks a year with an annual value of $230 million to publishers. Chan quoted the Parliamentary Budget Officer who estimated that only about 25 per cent of the revenue generated by C-18 would go to newspaper publishers. He reiterated Meta’s threat to suspend news content in Canada on Facebook, just as it briefly did in Australia. That last comment excited Liberal members of the committee who pointed out that in addition to news links, vital government and NGO information was scrubbed from Australian Facebook feeds for a week until amendments to the Australian legislation were enacted. Hamilton MP Lisa Hepfner quoted from a Wall Street Journal article which alleged that while Meta publicly claimed the non-news deletions were accidental, in private executives were gloating. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Chris Bittle, was even more damning in his comments. “It is absolutely shocking. This is modern-day robber baron tactics that Meta is demonstrating,” he told his colleagues. Chan and Marc Dinsdale, head of media partnerships for Meta Canada, both stated they had no inside knowledge of the Australian situation and maintained the threat to cut service in Canada was merely a warning about provisions of the bill they find disturbing. Matt Hatfield, campaigns director for OpenMedia, also took issue with the bill. He said it raised questions about who is in and who is out of the system, who is producing quality journalism, how much they will be paid and how transparent the process is to the public. “We believe the government is trying to dodge responsibility for answering these highly sensitive questions,” Hatfield stated. “Yet Bill C-18 still answers them. Baring these questions just means its answers are more obscure, secretive, unequal and intentionally damaging to trust in journalism.” "Eligible News Businesses" (ENBs) is how the act defines the publishers who must deal with the platforms or Digital News Intermediaries (DNIs). Hatfield worries that publishers will race to the bottom of the journalistic barrel to find clickbait that will increase eyeballs to the platforms. People will not read longform journalism but will instead be drawn to lighter, fluffier fare. Amendments must be made to the bill, he asserted. “I don’t always love my platform feed but I don’t want our government knowingly making it worse and that’s what C-18 currently does.” Bittle questioned Hatfield about where OpenMedia gets its funding. He asked if Google provided money to the group. The campaigns director replied that half of the organization’s funding comes from the general public making donations, that while Google donated last fiscal year it has not this year, and that no contributor is allowed to give more than 15 per cent of OpenMedia’s budget. Speaking in support of the bill was Annick Charette, president of the fédération nationale des communications et de la culture. It represents 86 unions, including news media locals. “The digital platforms have cornered the ad revenue market and this is why this legislation is extremely important in order to level the playing field between news media and digital platforms which are all powerful and I would even say threatening,” she said according to a translation. She also wants to see amendments to the bill. Some exemptions are too broad and some ENBs do not meet the two employee threshold requirements found in the legislation. Much of the administration of the act will fall to the CRTC. A former chair of the commission warned that it may not be up to the task. “I’m not here to question the rationale of the legislation nor the method adopted,” Konrad von Finckenstein told the panel. “Rather I would like to share with you some problems that I see in implementing this legislation. This should not be taken that I support this legislation, however.” He noted that DNIs self-identify while ENBs are determined by the CRTC. Many of the ENBs are broadcasters who are regulated under a different statute, he added. He also urged changes to the undue preference section of the legislation. –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

Facebook denounces Online News Act as it finally appears at committee

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Facebook denounces Online News Act as it finally appears at committee

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