Hi everyone,
I saw this in the news this week and thought it’d be interesting to share. The federal government has introduced legislation that would require platforms like Facebook and Google to compensate news organizations for the profits they make off of having their news content on their platform. Bill C-18 will require the CRTC to decide which outlets qualify to receive a share of the profits. Apparently, 450 private news outlets have closed down in the last year as internet giants eat up 80% of their online ad revenue. This bill is designed to help struggling news organizations but a lot of the details remain murky. There are concerns these internet giants will tweak their algorithms to privilege certain news outlets over others in an attempt to continue to maximize their profits. The minister in charge of this file has stated that there are fines worked into the bill that the CRTC could utilize to prevent a situation like this. It will be interesting to see how this bill will be applied if it becomes law.
To read more about the bill check out the news story below:
– Amit Chandi