[MAGZine]

The best I can tell, meta is deliberately overapplying the law in an attempt to rally public sentiment against a law they don't like.

An example of this is where meta has basically "regionally suspended" some news accounts. Some Canadians (a/b testing) going to Instagram pages owned by a News Orgs see "sorry, blocked, bitch at the government." But the law doesn't say news orgs can't use social media unless Meta pays them.

It's not the first time Canada has seen this sort of bad behaviour from entitled companies. I've seen literally this overapplication strategy in other instances.

Perhaps the law should be tweaked. Perhaps it should not be. But this actively damages my view of Meta. maybe the fact they hate this so much is an indication the government is doing something right.

Maybe Canadians will be inspired to get their own news instead of consuming whatever viewpoint Meta deems acceptable (and yes I think actual domestic journalism is a better source than Meta).

[hn_throwaway_99]

I pretty much despise Meta, but this action has be thinking better of them:

Canadian Publishers: You have to pay us when you link to our content!

Meta: OK, we won't link to your content.

Canadian Publishers: No wait that's not what we meant...

[blq10]

Problem being that despite the fact that getting your content hoovered by socials is stealing ad revenue - Facebook etc al have declared themselves the only sites on the internet that matter, and if they aren't linking to you you don't matter.

Something does need to be done about this, this is something - whether it's the right something or not is debatable, but I find the idea that this is just smug news orgs getting their justified comeuppance silly.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Facebook etc al have declared themselves the only sites on the internet that matter

Users have done that.

[AwaAwa]

Nothing a little digital emergency can't sort out, in the Northern Free Land.

[jsnell]

The law is not limited to content appearing on the news companies' websites. It applies to "news content" created by an "eligible news business" and "made available" by a "digital news intermediary".

The definition of "news content" is quite broad [0]. It's likely that basically all content posted by a "news business" on social media would qualify. So I don't think it is an example of overapplication. If the government wanted to ensure that the news companies can continue posting on Meta social media sites, they shouldn't have gone for such an aggressive scope on every dimension.

[0] "content — in any format, including an audio or audiovisual format — that reports on, investigates or explains current issues or events of public interest"

[kemayo]

Spitballing here, but perhaps the argument could be made that news posted by a Canadian news organization to Instagram might potentially-count as news they need to be paid for if it's shown to other users on that platform? Not sure whether it has to be content that's directly hosted on their own website...

The news organization's Instagram profile -- which contains a link to their website -- would almost certainly count as content to be paid for.

I mean, I'm sure Meta is motivated to pick an expansive reading of the bill in order to pressure the Canadian government, but what you describe doesn't sound inherently outside the bounds of "we want to avoid all activities that we're required to pay you for".

[marcinzm]

Reading the text of the law it would count as news if it ties to any issue or event of public interest. I'm actually having difficulty thinking of a post by a large organization that wouldn't fall under that definition.

[marcinzm]

Reading the law, if a news outlet makes a post that counts as "news content" such as commenting on any ongoing public issues (including this very topic) then Meta would be potentially liable for it under the law. So unless Meta has lawyers review every single potential post made by a news outlet the simplest approach is to just block all news outlet accounts.

[xeckr]

>bad behaviour from entitled companies

The news corps are the ones that are acting with nauseating entitlement.

Entitled to first post their links on someone else's platform to boost their reach, and then to make them pay for hosting it. Utter madness.