Facebook is threatening to block the sharing of news content on its platforms in Canada if the government goes ahead with new legislation that will compel digital platforms to pay news publishers for sharing their content.
Introduced in April, the new Online News Act, would force platforms like Meta’s Facebook and Alphabet’s Google to negotiate with news publishers, paying the for the right to share their content, similar to legislation passed in Australia last year.
A parliamentary committee is considering the bill, and the US social media giant has said it has not been invited to participate in the deliberations or share its concerns.
Marc Dinsdale, head of media partnerships at Meta Canada, said, “We believe the Online News Act misrepresents the relationship between platforms and news publishers, and we call on the government to review its approach.”
Dinsdale went on, “In the face of adverse legislation based on false assumptions that defy the logic of how Facebook operates, we believe it’s important to be transparent about the possibility that we may be forced to reconsider allowing news content sharing in Canada.”
The bill’s author, Canada’s Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, said Friday the government was having “constructive conversations” with facebook.
In an earlier statement, Rodriguez said, “All we’re asking the tech giants like Facebook to do is negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they profit from their work.”
The legislation will mandate that digital platforms which have a “bargaining imbalance” with news businesses, based upon factors like a company’s global revenues, will have to negotiate deals with media outlets which would then have to be approved by an official government regulator.
Dinsdale noted that news content was not a significant source of revenue for Facebook, nor was it a significant draw for users.
Google threatened to close its Australian search engine when Australia proposed similar legislation which would have forced the search giant to pay news publishers for sharing their work. Facebook cut all third party content from its Australian accounts for over a week as well.
After a series of amendments were offered, both companies eventually struck deals with Australian media companies.
