Canada: Google Pulling News from Products Over New Law

Facts

• On Thursday, Google announced it would pull Canadian news from its search engine and other products in response to the Online News Act, which received royal assent in June and must take effect within the next six months.¹
• The Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18, sets rules for online platforms to negotiate commercial deals to pay news publishers for content to try to create fair revenue sharing between the two sides.²
• Canada’s independent watchdog last year estimated that news publishers would stand to receive $249M per year under this legislation.³
• Google’s announcement comes one week after Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, vowed to execute a similar blackout of Canadian publishers.⁴
• This law is similar to one Australia adopted in 2021, which caused Facebook to remove sharing and viewing of local and international news in that country. But news was restored after a deal was made between the company and the government.⁵
• The past three years have seen other countries pass similar regulations, with Google agreeing to pay publishers in France, Germany, Brazil, and the UK.⁵

Sources: ¹CBC, ²Al Jazeera, ³Reuters, ⁴NPR Online News, and ⁵NBC.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by BBC. This wasn’t an easy decision, but it had to be made in the face of an unworkable bill that hasn’t taken the tech companies’ suggestions into consideration. Canada is only hurting itself because now it won’t receive any money from the big tech firms, and the country’s major media associations and outlets will lose the traffic Google and Meta generate. The government should negotiate a better deal with these companies.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Toronto Sun. It’s obscene that these big tech firms would rather spend money to rework their platforms to exclude Canadian sources rather than pay a small portion of their billions to compensate those who are creating the content. This is nothing more than bullying; the Canadian government shouldn’t capitulate, and Canadian news consumers should do their part by going directly to the sources of the content.