Bill C-18: Google and Meta spark crucial test for Canadian journalism
Retrieved on:
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
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Three events have recently marked a powerful inflection point in Canadian journalism.
Key Points:
- Three events have recently marked a powerful inflection point in Canadian journalism.
- First, Google and Meta announced they will no longer share Canadian news links on their platforms in response to the new Online News Act, Bill C-18, designed to make them pay for their use of Canadian journalism.
What’s at stake?
- At stake is the nature of the country’s communications ecosystem, affecting how Canadians get news and information that matters to them.
- As former journalists, researchers and co-founders of The Conversation Canada, a national not-for-profit news organization dedicated to sharing insights from academics, we support the emergence of the best possible journalism ecosystem given the conditions.
The role of Google and Meta
- For now, Canadians won’t notice anything different as Google says the changes will take place when the law comes into effect over the coming months.
- Similarly, Meta plans to phase out news by the end of the year.
- Google also announced that it would close down its Google News Showcase program, launched in 2021.
Act expected to take six months to be in place
- These moves by Google and Meta were precipitated by the Online News Act, which became law on June 22.
- It is likely to take six months to come into force as the Department of Canadian Heritage works out the details on how to enforce it.
How we got here
- The main focus of Google’s activities has involved funding individual organizations through direct payment deals for content on Showcase.
- The company has also provided funding for digital innovation and training, oriented within their own proprietary systems, and boot camps for startup entrepreneurs.
- For example, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google provided $1.5 million to 230 Canadian newsrooms.
Why now?
- This is separate to its support of the CBC, the country’s public broadcaster.
- And this is where the proposed moves by media giants Postmedia, Nordstar (publisher of the Toronto Star) and Bell come in.
- The larger questions for Canadians are about the nature, amount and quality of journalism and who controls its communications infrastructures.
Impact of Postmedia-Nordstar merger
- Examples such as the proposed merger of Postmedia and Nordstar illustrate one of the trade-offs under consideration about the amount of journalism content and who is doing it, in addition to journalist economic conditions.
- The last time the two companies made a deal to swap papers in 2017 resulted in 291 job losses and continuing centralization of content.
- How we understand what is happening now and how we got here is necessary to make sound policy decisions moving forward.