Immediately after the House of Commons passed the Online News Act on Wednesday afternoon, Meta reiterated its threat to pull news from Facebook in Canada. In a written statement released by a public relations firm, Meta’s head of public policy in Canada, Rachel Curran, writes that the company wants to avoid “subjecting to government-imposed negotiations that do not take sufficient account of the value we provide to publishers”. The law, she argues, “would primarily benefit broadcasters — not local and regional newspapers.”
The piece of legislation proposed by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals aims to force digital platforms, mainly Google and Facebook, to enter into fair compensation agreements with news companies for the sharing of their journalistic content.
As the bill makes its way to the Upper House, the company now wants to lobby senators. “We urge the Senate to seriously consider the implications of a bill that will affect how information is shared online and hurt innovative local news outlets,” Ms.me Curran.
The Liberals, Bloc and New Democrats voted in favor of the bill and the Conservatives opposed it. Thus, according to the unofficial results, 213 deputies voted for and 114 against.
On Twitter, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and sponsor of the bill, Pablo Rodriguez, welcomed the passage of a bill “important to ensure that we have a strong, independent and sustainable press in Canada”.
Mr. Rodriguez hadn’t commented on Meta’s threats at the time of this writing, but in the previous episode he said that “the threat doesn’t make me tremble well well”. He did not fail to point out that the web giant made a similar threat to Australia and that “in the end, they stayed”.
In an appearance this fall before the House of Commons Heritage County, Meta’s global policy director, Kevin Chan, argued that links posted on Facebook to media content generate 1.9 billion clicks per month. year, which would be the equivalent of $230 million.
However, Meta used the same strategy in Australia following the adoption of a similar bill. The company first pulled news content from its platform, then days later ended up backtracking and making major deals with news companies.
Several press companies have already concluded individual agreements, which have remained confidential, with Meta and Google. The Canadian Press and Meta launched a program in 2020 to provide around ten scholarships per year to young journalists at the start of their career.