This was OpenMedia’s fix Bill C-18 campaign. It’s unclear if any of this was fixed when it got passed.
Right now, most of the funding goes straight into the pockets of large broadcast media like Corus, Rogers and the CBC. Newspapers? Minority players. Local news that’s already disappeared? Zero help. Startup outlets? Not included. Effective news support should be concentrated on where news is fast disappearing, not on broadcast outlets that don’t need the help.2,3
What about press independence? As written, Bill C-18 hands enormous power to Big Tech and to the CRTC to secretly shape the type of news that gets made in Canada. News organizations enter into secret deals with platforms to get funding; there’s no public reporting on who receives funds, how much they’re receiving, or why some groups wind up approved while others are rejected.4 That’s not good enough. Transparency about who’s funding the news and how they reached their deal is vital for the public to maintain trust in the news industry.5 Any legislation must ensure that eligibility decisions are made publicly, transparently, and without government or platform pressure.
A strong Fourth Estate is essential in preserving democracy. This bill reduces the power of authoritarian supporting anti-democracy billionaires like Zuckerberg and empowers the free press.
But it’s OK for independent media in Canada to not get paid?
I pay for truth based independent media by donation. Propaganda garbage such as Rebel and the like I refuse to support. The model needs to change – good independent media have already figured it out. Also, I don’t see where I suggested independent media should not get paid. I’ve never suggested such a thing.
Just because the majority goes to major news corps doesn’t mean smaller media receives nothing. That’s like complaining that Bell media makes more profit than a Coop owned journal… Get more prints/links, get a bigger piece of the pie because your work is more profitable.
I don’t want Ezra Levant getting a dime from this.
Is he involved with openmedia.org?
Probably not, but I don’t think it’s possible to make legislation that sends money to something like openmedia without also Ezra Levant (far right grifter asshole) also getting money.
I’m very confused about what openmedia.org is saying vs what I’ve been reading elsewhere about C-18.
Basically sites facebook have been demanding news media sites to put more and more of their news stories into the summary preview. This is the internet, you know most people generally don’t bother reading the articles. If there’s a summary, it’s even more unlikely they’ll click to read the article. But if no one clicks through to the news site, they don’t load the ads there so the news site gets no money. They are loading ads on facebook, which is where they’re reading the article.
The news sites can’t refuse facebook because facebook controls so much internet traffic.
So the government steps in and requires facebook to share some ad revenue with the news sites. Facebook gets made and takes their ball home and isn’t displaying news at all now.
openmedia is upset because the news sites they represent aren’t also going to get facebook ad revenue like other news sites. So basically “we want money too! sign this petition because government bad, big media bad!”
My concern is I don’t want news sites (like the ones Ezra Levant runs) that exist solely to spread disinformation with a political agenda to profit off of this.
Obviously it’s more complex than that, but that’s the gist of it.
Got it! Thanks for the clarification!
Yikes, I hope not.
