Bill C-18 would require Google and Facebook to compensate publishers when posting or linking to their work.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The prospect of Facebook permanently blocking Canadians’ access to news on its platform drew one step closer Tuesday after the government rejected a key Senate amendment pushed for by the technology giant.
The Senate transport and communications committee voted against a bid by Conservative senator Claude Carignan to exclude links to news under Bill C-18, after the government opposed the amendment.
Senators made a series of changes to the bill Tuesday, as the Prime Minister and Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez reiterated their condemnation of Facebook’s decision to block some Canadians’ access to news.
The online news bill would make Facebook and Google compensate news organizations for posting or linking to their work to support Canada’s news industry, which has seen advertising migrate to tech giants.
Facebook has warned that it will withdraw Canadians’ ability to see and share news on its platform if Bill C-18 passes without significant changes. This month it began conducting tests restricting about 1.2 million Canadians’ ability to find news.
“We’re not going to put up with Facebook’s bullying,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Tuesday.
“Facebook is choosing to block Canadians’ access to local news instead of paying their fair share. That’s unacceptable. Canadians need to be able to access news. It’s fundamental to our democracy.”
After some Canadians discovered they could not find news sites, including Le Journal de Québec, on Facebook Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez accused the social-media platform of “trying to intimidate the government of Canada.”
“It’s a clear attack on our democracy and they’re trying to intimidate a sovereign government,” he said. “They’re trying to intimidate the senators actually working on the bill and it happens exactly at the same moment that the bill comes out of the Senate committee.”
Facebook, which is owned by Meta, said it had not started the tests to coincide with the Senate hearing.
“Tests are underway and they began last week,” said Lisa Laventure, a Facebook spokeswoman.
Paul Deegan of News Media Canada, which represents the news industry, said the government should halt advertising with any company that blocks news, urging large corporations to follow suit.
“Blocking access to real news is fundamentally undemocratic. Canadians expect more from leading corporate citizens,” he said.
Facebook and Google oppose having to pay for posting links to news. Earlier this year, Google restricted around 1.1. million Canadians’ ability to search for news in tests of its response to the online news bill.
“We’re very concerned about the path we’re on and continuing to do everything we can to avoid a negative outcome for Canadians,” said Shay Purdy, a Google spokesman said on Tuesday. “We’re urgently seeking to work with the government on a compromise that would be workable for both platforms and publishers and clear the path for us to increase our investments in the Canadian news ecosystem.”
Google, Facebook and Apple have already signed some partnership deals with news organizations in Canada, including The Globe and Mail.
The Senate transport and communications committee voted to allow news organizations to opt out of the Bill C-18 bargaining framework, which would be regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission.
The bill will go this week to the Senate for its third reading. The Heritage Minister, who is keen for it to pass before Parliament’s summer break, will consider whether to accept the Senate amendments as the bill goes back to the Commons.
Quebec Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne introduced an amendment to make the C-18 regime kick in within six months of gaining royal assent. This would give Google and Facebook – if they do not withdraw from news – a deadline to conclude voluntary deals with news groups before the regulator gets involved.
In spite of government opposition, the committee also voted for a change to the bill proposed by Senator Miville-Dechêne to make the “value” of news central to negotiations between tech giants and news groups.
The government rejected a string of changes proposed by senators, including an attempt to stop the publicly funded CBC from being compensated under Bill C-18.
It failed to pass an amendment to try to prevent the CRTC “snooping” in newsrooms.
The Globe and Mail’s publisher and chief executive, Phillip Crawley, appeared before the Senate committee in late May and warned that Bill C-18 could pose a threat to media freedom by giving the CRTC “open-ended powers” to compel news organizations to hand over information.
The government introduced its own amendment to further protect the confidentiality of publishers’ commercial information. If members of an arbitration panel, helping facilitate deals between platforms and news groups, leak confidential data, they would now face financial penalties.