[dsir]

People in support of this need to consider how this type of legislation affects the integrity of the internet.

This bill is not about supporting independent media like they claim. This is first and foremost a link tax, and the result of it is damaging to free press. Independent media sources depend on traffic from social media platforms to function. They themselves are often the ones sharing the links to their own content to drive traffic and readership from in which they monetize through ads. Furthermore, many of these local publishers leverage their social media following to share content on behalf of other local businesses through sponsored articles and posts. The Canadian government playing strong man here when repeatedly warned of the outcome is putting independent media companies in serious jeopardy of remaining solvent.

Meta and Google are in the right here, and I hope they continue to stand their ground. If they cave on this issue, it sets a terrible precedent that jeopardizes the health of the internet as we know it. Companies should not have to pay the source whenever a link is shared on their platforms. It's just backwards.

If you are talking about situations where they are scraping and displaying the contents of an article, that is a different issue, and seemingly not one that is the primary target of this bill.

[toomuchtodo]

Newspapers existed before social media. They will exist after social media deplatforms them. Big Tech should not be able to hold the integrity of the Internet hostage.

[tsycho]

Spanish newspapers tried this. They failed miserably.

Don't let your dislike for social media blind you from the reality that the world has changed, for the majority of the people in the world. People will spend their free time on these sites/apps, whether or not they have news.

The old local news model is dead. Niche sites like the WSJ, FT, NYT can survive with paid subscriptions, the rest have to find a different business model. This is not a conspiracy by Big Tech or billionaires, as much as we might want to find someone to blame. It's a structural change in the ether of society, information and distribution. Anything with near zero marginal costs of distribution needs is now in competition with the whole world, and unless they have something unique that people are willing to pay for, their days are numbered.

[reaperducer]

News, even if it's only headlines, has value. Google knows this. If the news headlines had no value, Google wouldn't have launched Google News in the first place.

Try scraping Google's content as a trillion-dollar company and see how long that lasts.