The House of Commons in Ottawa is currently working on Bill C-18, which, if passed, would force web giants like Facebook and Google to “enter into fair compensation agreements with media companies for sharing their journalistic content”.1.
But now the two giants are waving threats to remove all journalistic content from their platforms, saying it’s unfair that their sacred status is being attacked for a rare time in North America (which is more common in Europe).
It should be noted that Google and Facebook are assuming hegemonic status in their respective fields of activity. In fact, in Canada in 2020, the Google search engine had an overall market share of 88%2 and Facebook was used by 77% of Canadians at least once in the last month as of Spring 2018. This is well ahead of its closest pursuer, which is…Instagram (owned by Meta, Facebook’s parent company) at 31%.
hegemonic status
However, this hegemonic status is beginning to become problematic, or should I say the fact that it is problematic is becoming increasingly apparent. In fact, according to the Digital News Report 2022 overall, 52% of Canadians get their information primarily from either news websites or apps (27%) or social media (25%)4. It doesn’t take long to rack your brains to understand that Google’s hegemony in indexing websites and Facebook as social media poses a real risk to information dissemination if they decide to withdraw journalistic content from their platforms.
Seeks ?
But this saga also allows us to ask ourselves questions about our relationship with social media and news media. Yes, what would remain on Facebook if there were no more news? Funny memes and videos I guess, but nothing very relevant per se. And would Google still be an interesting search engine if it excluded all journalistic content from its results? I doubt it, despite the recognized power of its algorithm (which is also dubiously powered by our personal data).
1 Saba, Michel, “Law C-18 Passed, Facebook Repeats Threat to Withdraw Messages”, Le Soleil, December 14, 2022, consulted on 2023-03-14, URL https://www.lesoleil.com/2022/12 /14/bill-c-18-passes-facebook-reiterates-its-threat-to-remove-news-3e297cbced3c6767acf0f0dc0bec33b2
2 Search the Web, UQÀM, retrieved on 03/14/2023, URL https://infosphere.uqam.ca/rechercher-linformation/chercher-web/
3 Brousseau-Pouliot, Vincent, “Who uses which social network in Canada?”, 4 February 2019, accessed 14-03-2023, URL https://www.lapresse.ca/techno/reseaux-sociaux/201902/04 /01-5213416-qui-utilisation-quel-reseau-social-au-kanada.php
4 Center for Media Studies, A Look at News Practices in Canada | Digital News Report 2022, 2022, URL https://www.cem.ulaval.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cem_digital_news_report_2022_regard.pdf
We must never forget that we are not really dependent on Facebook or Google. We use these tools to meet our needs (be it to communicate and access information). If Google or Facebook stopped serving our needs out of greed, all we would have to do was switch tools. Although these two giants seem indispensable to us after around two decades of use, they are not the only ones offering their services. Several other ethical alternatives are just two clicks away on the web.
Photo courtesy of Anna Tompkins
jeremy plamondon, Gatineau