(Ottawa) A Commons committee will examine Google’s decision to block Canadian users from accessing news sites. The pilot project of the web giant, started in reaction to the study of a bill which it dislikes, has been accused of “serious error” by Justin Trudeau.
The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage will meet on Tuesday, at the request of the Liberals, the Bloc and the New Democrats, to determine the terms of the study of “the censorship of news content by Google”.
The legislation that society opposes, C-18, has already been passed in the House. With the exception of one member, all elected members of the Conservative Party voted against when it was put to the vote last December.
The objective of C-18 is in particular to force web giants like Google to enter into agreements that would compensate Canadian media for content that is republished on their digital platforms. And while the bill is being studied in the Senate, the company has conducted censorship “tests”.
Google has locked less than 4% of Canadian users of its products from access to news content, including its search engine and the Discover feature on Android devices that broadcast news and sports coverage, as reported by Google. revealed The Canadian Press last Wednesday.
“We are briefly testing potential product responses to Bill C-18 that impact a very small percentage of Canadian users,” Google spokesperson Shay Purdy told the news agency. a written statement.
In Canada as in Australia
Committee vice-chairman, Bloc Québécois Martin Champoux, was shocked to see Google repeat the stunt it had done in Australia in Canada, as lawmakers considered comparable legislation, and the web giant blocked access to Australian news sites “on a trial basis”.
“It’s a bit like a maneuver, he notes in an interview. And I think it’s only natural for the parties that defend C-18 to be upset that Google is trying to play the big guns and do a little intimidation before the bill is passed. »
The vagueness of the criteria on which the multinational bases itself in order to blacklist content is also “worrying”, because it “penalizes a certain type of content and chooses what type of content Canadians can see through their research”, which raises “a host of questions”, he underlines.
The gesture made by the web giant also upset the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, who did not hesitate to communicate his way of thinking. “Canadians will not be intimidated,” he wrote on his Twitter account, calling the whole thing “very disappointing”.
The Prime Minister went further on Friday, declaring without being asked to comment on the issue that it was a “serious error” that Google “would rather prevent Canadians from accessing the news than want to pay journalists fairly for the work they do as professionals.
With The Canadian Press and Joël-Denis Bellavance, The Press