Facebook Confirms it Will Block News Sharing Under Bill C-18: How We Got Here
A thread on what led to the prospect of blocked news sharing on Facebook and Instagram
Meta confirms it will stop news sharing on Facebook and Instagram under Bill C-18. This was an obvious outcome given mandated payments for links + government talking about uncapped liability for up to 35% of all news expenditures. How did we get here? 1/8
Michael Geist @mgeist
The foundation of Bill C-18 is mandated payment for links, raising real risks to the free flow of information and harming smaller, independent media. @pablorodriguez was unconcerned and was content to rush through the bill with little debate. 2/8
After just four hearings, government wanted to go to clause-by-clause review, blocking dozens of potential witnesses. Among them? Facebook, which initially wasn’t even invited to appear despite demands it pay hundreds of millions for links. 3/8
Once Facebook said it was considering blocking news sharing in Canada in light of Bill C-18, the government extended the hearings and invited them to appear. But by then, it was clear that the risks of shutting down news sharing was real. 4/8
Heritage Minister @pablorodriguez was asked at committee about the possibility of Facebook stopping news sharing and what he was doing about it. He had no answers. Simply said it was a “business decision” for the company. 5/8
The issue of Facebook and linking came up again during clause-by-clause review. Government officials confirmed that posts without links would not be caught by Bill C-18, but if a user added a link it would. 6/8
Michael Geist @mgeist
Once Bill C-18 gets to Senate, Senator Harder said government expects up to 35% of news expenditures for every news outlet in Canada to be covered, creating uncapped liability for platforms based on costs of hundreds of other orgs simply for linking. 7/8
Which brings us to today: Google testing removing news links from search results and Meta confirming it will block news sharing on its platforms in Canada. There were better alternatives that could have avoided this, but @pablorodriguez chose approach in which everyone loses. 8/8
Find me on: