Facebook vs Australia - Canadian media could be the next target for ban singaporestar.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from singaporestar.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Author: Jean-Hugues Roy, Professeur, Ecole des medias, Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM)
Shortly after Facebook nuked news from its platform in Australia, I spent an hour on the phone with Kevin Chan, head of public policy for Facebook, Inc., in Canada.
He told me he’s “working really hard to prevent that outcome in Canada.” In other words, if Ottawa follows Australia and tables a bill forcing tech giants to share revenue with the news business, Facebook would drop the A-bomb on Canadian journalism as well.
Chan would prefer to work out partnerships with Canadian journalism. He said Facebook gave $10 million to various news projects in the past four years. He pledged “in 2021, we’ll do quite a bit more.” But don’t put a gun to our head, he basically said, or we’ll fight back.
He told me he’s “working really hard to prevent that outcome in Canada.” In other words, if Ottawa follows Australia and tables a bill forcing tech giants to share revenue with the news business, Facebook would drop the A-bomb on Canadian journalism as well.
Chan would prefer to work out partnerships with Canadian journalism. He said Facebook gave $10 million to various news projects in the past four years. He pledged “in 2021, we’ll do quite a bit more.” But don’t put a gun to our head, he basically said, or we’ll fight back.
Render unto Caesar
I actually share many of Chan’s views. Here’s one. Last fall, the lobby group representing the news industry in Canada published a report