HERITAGE MINISTER STEVEN GUILBEAULT SAID FRIDAY HE WILL CONTINUE TO PUSH BACK AGAINST WHAT HE CALLS ‘BULLYING ATTITUDES’ DISPLAYED BY FACEBOOK AS PART OF A RIFT WITH THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT.
Facebook ‘bullying’ in Australia fight
OTTAWA • Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is taking an increasingly aggressive posture toward digital tech firm Facebook in its use of online news content, as his office prepares policy changes to address concerns among publishers and broadcasters.
In an interview with National Post on Friday, Guilbeault said he would continue to push back against what he calls “bullying attitudes” displayed by Facebook as part of a rift with the Australia government, which some observers say could spill over into Canada in coming months.
Australian officials have proposed new regulations that would compel Facebook, Google and other U.S. tech giants to pay news outlets for the content shared on their platforms. Facebook has pushed back against the regulatory change, and earlier this month threatened to bar Australian users from sharing news on their platform in retaliation.
Guilbeault has repeatedly signalled his desire to introduce similar rules in Canada, and says Facebook will need to get comfortable with what he believes is an eventual international policy shift on the issue.
“This is going to be a growing problem for them unless they decide to face the issue,” he said, adding that the threats posed by Facebook in Australia could hurt the firm’s bottom line.
“If Facebook starts boycotting all these countries, at some point their business model is going to face some serious challenges,” he said.
He is looking to introduce legislation soon that would introduce new rules on digital news sharing, but declined to say what those changes might be. He said the changes would likely have to be passed in the House of Commons due to limits within Canada’s regulatory system.
His comments are part of a wider debate about whether news organizations should be compensated in some way when their content is shared on social media platforms, software companies or search engine providers. France and Australia have both introduced policy changes that force major tech companies to pay news outlets.
Media companies have been hit in recent years by falling revenue streams, for which they partly blame digital tech giants, who have hoovered up more and more advertising dollars.
Guilbeault, a former environmental activist, says international tech behemoths like Apple, Google, Facebook and others have leveraged their growing financial heft to push for policies that are ultimately bad for domestic economies. He sees Facebook’s threat against Australian authorities as precisely that sort of tactic, which he has said he will push back against.
“I don’t like bullying attitudes,” he said. “This really reminds me of how big polluters acted 20 years ago, and I don’t think it’s a very constructive approach.”
Representatives at Facebook Canada say Guilbeault’s posture toward the company overlooks crucial details that make Australia’s proposed regulations unworkable.
The policy would effectively force Facebook to pay for news stories that are shared by users, representatives say, rather than voluntarily ordered by the company itself — a model that would make basic costing practices extremely difficult, and that exaggerates the value news providers bring to the platforms.
Soon after the draft policy was released, Facebook said in a statement that it would “reluctantly” stop Australian people from sharing news on Facebook or Instagram, claiming the regulations “would force Facebook to pay news organizations for content that the publishers voluntarily place on our platforms and at a price that ignores the financial value we bring publishers.”
Changes sought by Australian policymakers also don’t account for the specific ways in which news is shared on various platforms, whether it be Google, Twitter, Apple or others, Facebook Canada representatives say.
Some general observers are mystified by Ottawa’s claim that social media platforms are unfairly using news content. Facebook users post snippets of news articles to their timelines, which typically link back to the original news source and often drive revenues for publishers and broadcasters.
“It’s hard for me to see any power imbalance that the heritage minister might be talking about,” said David Clement, of the Washingtonbased Consumer Choice Center.
He says forcing Facebook and other firms to pay for news in Canada would ultimately hurt both news providers and consumers, as it could make news less accessible for the public.
“(News sharing) is giving the newspaper industry access to audiences that they otherwise couldn’t reach on their own,” he said. “If the government were to follow through with Australian style regulations, it might make the news harder to access, which in terms of media literacy would be a huge net negative for individuals, and for society.”
Some say Ottawa still hasn’t done enough to support Canadian media. “Facebook behaves like an outlaw because our government lets Zuckerberg write his own rules,” says Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, an advocacy group. “They pay no taxes in Canada, suffer no consequences for publishing illegal content and make billions here selling ads against content produced by others without compensation.”