I know south of the border folks don't mind too much about what the canucks are doing. But I'd thought I'd write something to illuminate how bad it is getting up here.

For those who don't know, Canada has a law that forces online platforms to pay Canadian publishing companies to share their content.

The Online News Act (Bill C-18) in Canada puts the burden on tech companies like Google and Meta to compensate publishers for linking to Canadian news .

I haven't dug that deep into the literature on this, but my first instinct tells me this is bad, really bad.

My starting assumptions:

Canadian government was able to threaten heavy punitive measures for non compliance (probably China-level censorship)
They found a way to tax american companies for .... doing what they had been designed to do?
The media here is already captured by a neoliberal/globalist agenda.

My glossing of the act's Charter Considerations

aims to enhance fairness ... by enhancing the bargaining position of news businesses .... The bargaining framework ... applies to a range of ways in which digital news intermediaries may make news content or portions of it available. ... This advances the fundamental values underpinning expressive freedoms in Canada, which include promoting the search for truth through the open exchange of ideas; participation in social and political decision-making; and the opportunity for individual self-fulfillment through expression.

Very vague language spouting lofty ideals that seem pretty much in alignment with the silicon-valley-type-equity agendas anyway. What it sounds like is the state aiming to protect the Canadian media that they hold (and subsidize) so dearly.
I know, like most Canadians, I feel so much opportunity for self-fulfillment through expression, thanks to this gracious act from His Majesty.

Dominant digital platforms may be broadly exempted from obligations under the Act if they independently negotiate agreements with news businesses.

Looks like a back-door for negotiations to take place with the teachers' pets. Seriously, what would the point of such 'free-speech protections' be if it is explicitly stated that independent negotiations allow platforms to be exempt?

By requiring arbitrators to consider that digital platforms’ communication of news content can create benefits and value for both digital platforms and news publishers, the Bill clarifies that fair compensation should be assessed in a balanced fashion.

Spinning it as a spam protection - dare I say, pay to post - but only for ..... Canadian news. Because there's such a high demand for people to be reading the CBC (Comintern Broadcasting Corporation) on Facebook.

Digital platforms are also prohibited from engaging in any undue preference or perpetuating any undue disadvantage in relation to their dissemination of news content.

Oh - God, let's hope something like that doesn't happen. Again, the reason this is stipulated is because whoever wrote this piece of work knows what the the logical outcome will be, which is that companies will do everything they can to get around these restrictions and the only one it is going to hurt are the independent media companies that don't already get preferential treatment by the state already.

My takeaway

The rest of the document goes on to outline the role that the CRTC (a branch of the Comintern that enforces broadcasters to air a certain percentage of Canadian content), and its role in the negotiations that this act pushes.

This act passed through our parliament over a year ago now, but really the reason I am looking into it and sharing it here now is in part due to the appalling levels to which Canadians willingly toe the (especially Liberal) party line.

They are ogling at this new bankster PM like some saviour, and apparently he's got the Libears leading again in the polls, according to our sacred state media.

I pretty much exclude the 'digital news intermediaries' from my daily browsing habits, so I can't speak to this personally, but the media is definitely captured in Canada. This act pretty much proves it. It creates a scheme where where online platforms now need to 'negotiate' with Canadian publishers to serve their content, and invites certain preferable negotiated exemptions from the act.

This act only hurts independent-funded media in Canada, and doesn't help in equalizing anything. People are sheepish as ever up here, and they're about to elect a globalist Bankster to be their new PM, mostly because everything the read in the news is served to them by their dear Comintern Broadcasting Corporation.