According to the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canadian government is taking a strong stand against removing news links from social networking platforms. A draft rule suggests receiving $234 million in compensation from Google and Meta. The recently passed Canadian News Media and Digital Platforms Act will have a significant financial impact on the behavior of internet giants like Meta and Google. In Canada, Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, has already taken down news links, and Google has vowed to do the same.
According to the proposed compensation breakdown, Google may be responsible for paying CAD $172 million in damages, while Meta may be required to pay CAD $62 million in damages to Canadian media publishers.
According to official statistics, Canada’s online ad revenues in 2021 were a sizeable CA$12.3 billion, with Google and Meta together controlling a sizeable 79 percent of this income. Digital platforms must fulfill certain requirements in order to be subject to the compensation requirement. These requirements include generating a total global revenue of CAD $1 billion or more, participating in a Canadian search engine or social media market related to the distribution and access of online news content, and having 20 million or more average monthly unique visitors or average monthly active users.
Meta and Google meet the requirements, with Bing possibly joining if it expands in Canada. Meta remains unaffected by the regulations, per Rachel Curran, head of public policy at Meta Canada, who argues the law is based on an “incorrect assertion” that Meta unfairly benefits from news content on its platforms. Meta’s decision to stop providing news in Canada remains unchanged. The proposed legislation is a part of Canada’s larger efforts. The government continues to negotiate the changing landscape of digital media.