Facebook warned on Friday that it may block the sharing of news content on its platform in Canada over concerns about legislation that would force digital platforms to pay news publishers.
The Online News Act, introduced in April, laid out rules to force platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Alphabet’s Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content, in a move similar to a ground-breaking law passed in Australia last year.
The legislation is being considered by a parliamentary committee, to which the US social media company said it had not been invited to share its concerns.
“We believe the Online News Act misrepresents the relationship between platforms and news publishers, and we call on the government to reconsider its approach,” said Mark Dinsdale, head of media partnerships at Meta Canada, in a blog post.
“In the face of adverse legislation based on false assumptions that defy the logic of how Facebook operates, we believe it is important to be transparent about the possibility that we may be forced to reconsider allowing the sharing of news content in Canada,” it wrote Dinsdale.
WATCH | Canada’s Heritage Minister outlines the bill:
Canada’s heritage minister outlines bill to make online giants compensate news outlets
Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez says the Liberal government is introducing legislation to force digital giants to compensate news publishers for the use of their content.
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, who introduced the bill, said in a statement Friday that the government continues to have “constructive conversations” with Facebook.
“All we ask of tech giants like Facebook is to negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they profit from their work,” Rodriguez said in an emailed statement.
The legislation proposes that digital platforms that have a “contracting imbalance” with the news business – measured by metrics such as a firm’s global revenue – enter into fair deals, which will then be assessed by a regulator.
Dinsdale said news content is not attractive to Facebook users and does not generate significant revenue for the company.
When Australia, which is leading global efforts to limit the power of tech firms, proposed legislation forcing them to pay local media outlets for news content, Google threatened to shut down its Australian search engine, while Facebook cut all third-party content from Australian accounts for more since a week.
Both eventually struck deals with Australian media companies after a series of legislative amendments were proposed.
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