Unless there is a change of strategy from the Trudeau government, all indications are that Meta will actually be able to pay the media by permanently stopping news sharing on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
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Federal officials released draft regulations on the online news law Friday morning that contained few surprises.
These regulations establish, among other things, the criteria for targeting platforms that will be forced to enter into agreements with the media, namely: a global revenue of at least $1 billion and more than 20 million unique visitors per month. in Canada.
The platforms that fall into this category can be counted on one hand: Facebook, Instagram and Google.
However, the third criterion – fundamental – casts a shadow over Ottawa’s ambitions: for the law to apply to a platform, it must act as an “intermediary” through which we receive news.
AFP
No news on the platform, no forced deals and no paid media.
In other words, by blocking access to the news, Meta no longer falls within the scope of the law, Canadian Heritage officials said.
And the lockdown, in effect since August, has not reduced the use of Facebook, which remains the most popular platform in the country, according to recent indicators.
The reaction to Friday’s release of the regulations made no difference for Meta, which released a statement that was in every way similar to its statement earlier in the summer.
“The regulations proposed today will not affect our business decision to end the availability of information in Canada,” its spokesman in Canada said, as “the regulatory process is unable to accommodate the fundamentally flawed premise” that “Meta unfairly benefiting from news content.”
Ottawa estimates that Meta and Google could pay around $230 million for the media sector if those platforms complied with the law.