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@Paulatics@mstdn.caWell. We had our final vote on C-18 today. And even though the bill has not yet had Royal Proclamation, and has not yet come into force, Facebook has just announced it will be blocking all news in Canada. As, alas, I predicted. https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/changes-to-news-availability-on-our-platforms-in-canada/ #SenateofCanada #Canada #cdnpoli #BillC18 #C18 #OnlineNewsAct #Facebook #Google #becarefulwhatyouwishfor
@PaulaticsAlthough, I note, the language here is vague. Have they started blocking already? Will they begin when the bill gets Royal Assent? Or not till the bill comes into force? Is this just a bullying/bargaining position? Or are they quitting Canada cold turkey? The language is…um…opaque. #Canada #Facebook #Google #OnlineNewsAct #SenateofCanada
@PaulaticsIn any event, I will keep on encouraging my (allegedly) 10,000 Facebook fan page fans to migrate with me to Mastodon. At least here, I'll be able to point links to interesting news stories and my own op-ed pieces! If you have FB friends who are interested in news, current affairs, and political conversation, you might suggest they check out Mastodon if they want to stay informed and engaged. #SenateofCanada #Facebook #BillC18 #OnlineNewsAct #Mastodon #MastodonMigration
@PaulaticsMeantime…Jamie Irving, a huge public champion of #BillC18 is out as the chair of Postmedia. A surprise announcement this afternoon. https://www.postmedia.com/2023/06/22/postmedia-announces-changes-to-board-of-directors-2/ #Postmedia #OnlineNewsAct #C18 #BillC18
@Paulatics
While I can understand the protest, the ballsiness of companies pushing governments is a little disturbing.
On the nerdy side, though, they're not doing all that great. I'm super curious to see how it affects user behaviour on those platforms.
Brands have been reported a fall in conversions and engagement for a while.
@Paulatics@juxtacognition Yup. There’s a lot of cutting off of noses to spite faces going on here.
@Paulatics 100% I set up to track what I can and chat to other big brands.
While I can't supply you with company data. Am happy to share what I find over the next few months.
Horsefeathers.
One. No pressure on government.
Two. Whats ballsy? What possible repercussion could be applied? -- to a website, who isnt showing news?
I know several websites that dont show news, including a few with news in the site title.
A "fall in conversations" is this a reference to Rohingya deaths that facebook arranged, or the imposition of Trump with meta partner Cambridge Analytica?
Not conversations. Conversions.
Also, their news consumption is down. See:
News consumption on facebook down, great.
Sure okay conversions.
STheretill, no problem, there is no problem here, the less people use facebook the better. I honestly cannot see any problem at all. So what is the top question. Less manipulation, less surveilance, is always a better idea.
@Paulatics@juxtacognition @kevinrns Thank you. That is a really interesting chart.
@Paulatics And with #CRTC wanting everyone who transmits "programs" in the world to register with CRTC, you will find many smaller "broadcasters" will simply geoblock Canada to avoid all the costly paperwork to register and argue for exemption.
The Canadian Government (and Senate who rubber stamps flawed bills) has made Canada hostile to innovation on the Internet. And ironically, legacy media and legacy news who lobbied for this will be hurt by their own stupid demands.
@Paulatics@jfmezei That’s C-11. C-18 only applies to Google and Facebook.
@Paulatics is that the same Google and Facebook like the minister claimed C-11 only applied to web giants?
Are Google and Facebook named in the bill, or is it up to some #CRTC or other to determine who is to be captured by the bill because the wording in bill is vague?
@Paulatics@jfmezei Yes. And yes.
@Paulatics I just pulled up the Decembert 14 2022 version of C-18 as served by legisinfo.
I sueed something called "search" in the text of the bill and neither "google" nor "facebook" appear in the text of the bill.
@Paulatics@jfmezei They do not. The government pushed back at any effort to enumerate companies. The obvious next targets would be Bing, Apple News and just possibly TikTok. But the government has insisted that only Facebook and Google are included. For now. You may recall that I tried to nail down the minister on this point: https://youtu.be/3ocBAD0dWbw #SenateofCanada #Facebook #Google #C18 #OnlineNewsAct
@Paulatics It's the text of the law that matters, not ephemeral prmises from an ephemeral minister. What minister sais in scrum has no value when it goes to FCA or Supreme Court. It's the text of the law that get roal assent , not what the ephemeral minister says.
@va2lam@mastodon.nz@jfmezei @Paulatics nope. I'm neither a lawyer nor a senator but legislative intent does matter: http://www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp?param=223&art=1642
@Paulatics@va2lam @jfmezei You are both right. What a minister says in a scrum doesn't matter. What he says on the record in a formal Senate hearing absolutely does. Courts look to Senate hearing transcripts to attempt to understand legislative intent. THAT said, I think the law is maddeningly vague. Not only are Meta and Google not named - there is no metric to determine who IS big enough to qualify.
@Paulatics I'm trying really really hard to not jump to conclusions on this one, but I do wonder if Jamie sees the writing on the wall for where this is all headed and has chosen to hit the emergency eject button now before it all hits the fan.
@Paulatics Spread the word amongst your Senatorial colleagues as well! I'd love to see more engagement from our appointed (and elected) officials!
@Paulatics they are all posturing
@Paulatics@MaybeMyMonkeys It's like a giant game of chicken, being played by both the government and the platforms. It's possible it may end with the government declining to bring the bill into force - and with Google and Facebook ponying up a set amount. But maybe that kind of compromise is too logical.
@Paulatics too many to make individual deals with. Meta, Twitter, Google, TikTok, Snapshat, Reddit, Bing, Discord plus any site that can post links.
@Paulatics My understanding is that Facebook intends on blocking news links for everyone sometime before the bill comes into force. Right now, Facebook it just testing the blocks on 5% of users. So far, either I'm unaffected or my site is small enough to evade detection so far.
@Paulatics@freezenet They haven’t started yet, at least not as of Friday morning. My newsfeed is still full of news. So at this point, I think it may still be a matter of threats and bargaining posture. We’ll have to see. But the fact that they haven’t rolled out mass blocking as yet suggests that maybe this is all kabuki theatre.
@Paulatics We will have to see, but in reading Meta's statement, I see this:
"Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect. "
https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/changes-to-news-availability-on-our-platforms-in-canada/
Unfortunately, the coming into force provisions aren't entirely clear to me. They may still be testing and gathering data and the Governor in Council may be what's buying time on this here.
@Paulatics By the way, is there a good way at tracking developments at the Governor in Council? I wouldn't mind knowing when they have decided to set dates for when the Online News Act comes into force if that's possible. I've... never looked into something like this before, admittedly.
@Bwacton@mastodon.social@Paulatics not having news on Facebook really isn’t a loss, there are plenty of places to get Canadian news. Maybe folks will realize now that some of the “news” items are just propaganda.
@AmeliasBrain@Bwacton @Paulatics I worry instead that, with links blocked, people will just copy & paste snippets (or screenshots of whatever story has them riled up, and they'll get passed around with even less context or ability for people to judge the source. Or see any corrections / updates the source article has added.