A 3D printed Facebook logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken Jan. 21, 2021. (Dado Ruvic/REUTERS)

Canada, Australia to coordinate efforts to make web giants pay for news

Canada and Australia agreed to coordinate their efforts to get web giants to pay for news during Tuesday’s phone call between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison.

A readout of the phone call between the two leaders released by the Canadian side said the two leaders “agreed to continue coordinating efforts to address online harm and ensure the revenues of web giants are shared more fairly with creators and media.”

Tuesday’s phone call between Trudeau and Morrison came on the heels of a decision by Facebook Inc. to lift the ban on viewing and sharing of news links by Australian users.

Facebook relented in its strongarm tactics after Canberra agreed to amend legislation that would force the social media giant to pay media companies for news content.

Australia and Facebook have been locked in a stand-off for more than a week as Canberra pushed ahead with the measure, aimed at tech behemoths, such as Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google.

Canada, which considers implementing similar legislation, had been watching closely Australia’s fight with the social media giants.

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault had condemned Facebook’s action and said the company’s tactics would not deter Ottawa.

“Canada is at the forefront of this battle … we are really among the first group of countries around the world that are doing this,” Guilbeault told reporters last week.

Last year, Canadian media organizations warned of a potential market failure without government action. They said the Australian approach would permit publishers to recover $620 million a year. Without action, they warned, Canada would lose 700 print journalism jobs out of 3,100 total.

Guilbeault said Canada could adopt the Australian model, which requires Facebook and Google to reach deals to pay news outlets whose links drive activity on their services, or agree on a price through binding arbitration.

With files from Reuters

Categories: Economy, International, Internet, Science & Technology, Politics
Tags: , , , ,

Do you want to report an error or a typo? Click here!

For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.