(Washington) Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge is urging the United States to join forces with Canada to regulate web giants to protect the information industry, which she says is essential to the preservation of Western democracies.
Mme St-Onge spoke at the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute in Washington.
“More than anything, we must be strong together. Facebook may be trying to intimidate Canada, but in reality it is trying to talk to the whole world,” said Ms.me St-Onge.
Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, recently removed local news from its platforms in response to Canada’s Online News Act.
The company threatened to do the same to other countries, including the United States, if they implemented similar policies.
The Online News Act, which is currently in its regulatory phase and will take effect in December, will require tech companies to pay news publishers for work shared or otherwise repurposed on their platforms.
Mme St-Onge alluded to the idea of Meta opening its platforms to misinformation by removing sources of information. She believes that G7 countries should not accept digital giants circumventing laws, because this ultimately harms their democracies.
They don’t want to be regulated, period. They shape and organize the online environment for us. They make decisions for us. And that is not how our countries or our democracies work.
Pascale St-Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who sponsored a similar bill in the United States, said she spent a lot of time consulting with Canada on the issue.
This bill proposes that Meta and Google negotiate agreements with news organizations for access to their content. Meta responded by threatening to remove the news in the United States.
Unlike in Canada, the U.S. bill received bipartisan support, which Ms.me Klobuchar, “couldn’t be more important.”
PHOTO J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar
In Canada, the Conservatives have said the Online News Act amounts to censorship, although the party presented a similar policy in the last federal election.
Speaking at the same event as Mme St-Onge, Mme Klobuchar said she has high hopes for her bill “because of the fact that Canada is moving forward in its negotiations.”
She praised Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for “rightly” criticizing Facebook “for putting company profits ahead of people’s safety.”
“People can wrap themselves in the Constitution, but if they really want to do something about the First Amendment, they have to make sure that we have a strong media, journalists and journalism,” said Mr.me Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota.
Both countries say the regulations are necessary to crack down on Google and Meta, whose dominance of the advertising market has taken away revenue from news organizations and led to editorial job cuts.