Munk Dialogue with Michael Geist

December 19, 2023
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Munk Dialogue with Michael Geist

Why the Online News Act is a policy disaster

Amid years of decline in news ad revenue and a rapidly changing media landscape, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-18, the Online News Act. This controversial piece of legislation requires Google and Meta – the company behind Facebook and Instagram – to pay Canadian news outlets for linking their content to these social media sites. Meta responded by blocking all Canadian news content from Facebook and Instagram, while Google has recently agreed to pay $100 million to Canadian publishers, indexed for inflation.

Our guest on this Munk Dialogue is Michael Geist, one of the legislation’s fiercest critics. Michael is an expert in Canadian technology law and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, and argues that far from helping Canadian news outlets, media organizations – unable to drive users from social media – will not only suffer from a loss of revenue, but they will become more reliant on government subsidies to stay afloat and thus become less objective in their reporting.

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