Tests are underway at Meta to block Canadian media content in the country in protest of Bill C-18, but these pressure tactics may not last.
• Also read: Bill C-18: The Senate is a hair’s breadth from passing legislation obliging web giants to pay the media
This was confirmed by UQAM media school professor Patrick White in an interview with TVA Nouvelles.
“It looks a bit like a bluff,” he said. We did it in Australia two years ago and it took seven days. Hopefully it won’t be more than two weeks here in Canada when Bill C-18 is passed in the next few days.
This partial removal of news content from Canadians’ news feeds would only affect a tiny fraction of the country’s population.
“There are barely 250,000 to 1.2 million Canadians who no longer see Canadian media information in their Facebook news feed, which is about 1 in 40 people who would be affected by the end of June and the royal approval of Bill C-18,” he continues away professor.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has particularly criticized the draft law’s phased negotiation method, which would force the web giant to negotiate individually with the various media groups in the country to agree on revenue sharing.
“We believe the law is not fair on Meta’s side,” shares Mr. White. We’d rather just pay a fine or send a check every year.”
The lack of up-to-date content from news media in users’ feeds could impact the quality of content offered and lead to more misinformation on the platform.
“There are already cancellations,” he adds. The information content of the Facebook news feed is currently 3%. So that’s going to lead to a lot more misinformation and a lot more useless information and even clickbait, which is articles that we’re only supposed to click on because it’s not necessarily reliable information.
Watch the full interview in the video above