The Online News Act must protect access to credible news on prominent platforms

People in Canada have found themselves hostage to the ongoing spat between the federal government and Meta over the sharing of revenue with news companies. Meta has restricted access to news contents on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in response to the federal government’s newly introduced Online News Act, a mandatory compensation law that will come into effect in December.

Federal officials estimate that Google and Facebook will have to pay a minimum of $234 million in annual compensation to Canadian news organizations for news that is shared on their platforms. In response, Meta argues that news is not a significant source of their revenue and posts with links to news articles make up less than three percent of what people see on their Facebook feeds.

As a result of the standoff, Facebook users in Canada have lost access to news on the platform since August. When the law takes effect, Google says it will remove links to Canadian news from its search, news and other platforms. Unquestionably, there will be a detrimental effect on people’s right of access to the free flow of credible information on prominent platforms in Canada.

The news ban, a month after Meta’s enforcement, has had little impact on usage of Facebook. It nonetheless gives rise to serious concerns. When people don’t have easy access to credible news, they are exposed to unverified and unsubstantiated information on social media. At a time when the federal government should do all it can to protect people from the harms of disinformation, a blackout of credible news on prominent platforms, because of a regulatory dispute, is not only counterproductive but a dangerous misstep.

The consequences will be even worse if people cannot independently analyse, compare and verify information on Google, where links to news are a critical resource. This will affect the work of scholars, researchers, journalists and people from a wide range of professions and background. You cannot promote freedom of information and put restraints on it at the same time.

Access to credible and verifiable information is critical for people to take informed decisions. Any limitation placed on this critical access is a violation of fundamental human rights. The sharing of news links by users on social media platforms and their availability on search engine should not be curtailed by a revenue sharing dispute.

News media have been hit hard by the shift of advertising from media outlets to platforms like Google and Facebook, which together earn 79 percent of all digital advertising revenue in Canada. Meta’s news blackout, even before the law takes effect, is a show of the power tech giants wield over data and people.

Tech giants should be held accountable for many reasons including transparency in their business models, their use of recommendation algorithms, their policies regarding data protection and the privacy rights of users, and their contribution to the economy and society. Google is presently on trial before a federal court in Washington in an antitrust case that the US government filed three years ago. That case targets Google’s monopoly in the online search market through its business partnerships. Canada, too, should have laws and regulations that provide safeguards to businesses and the general public.

The government’s intervention is critical to protect the news and journalism industry. However, a compensation formula that pays news companies based on the number of full-time journalists they employ gives little protection to small news organizations that rely on freelancers and content from other sources. The proposed regulatory framework benefits only a handful of large media conglomerates.

The public broadcaster CBC, which is already heavily subsidized, will likely be the biggest beneficiary of this regulation as it is the largest employer of journalists in Canada. Meanwhile, small news outlets fear that the elimination of a significant source of traffic for digital publications could prompt more layoffs and shutdowns.

The federal government should sit down with small media companies and take their concerns into consideration. Further negotiation with the tech giants is critical to end the standoff and support the news and journalism industry. Further law reforms must make it clear that tech giants and news businesses both have a public interest obligation to ensure access to credible news on the platforms.

Saad Hammadi is a global governance fellow at the University of Waterloo’s Balsillie School of International Affairs and a human rights advocate. His X handle is @saadhammadi.

This article first appeared in The Hill Times.