Економіка

Google is blocking some Canadian users from viewing news content in what the company said is a test run of a potential response to a Canadian government’s online news bill.

Bill C-18, the Online News Act, would require digital giants such as Google and Meta, which owns Facebook, to negotiate deals that would compensate Canadian media companies for republishing their content on their platforms.

The company said it is temporarily limiting access to news content for under 4% of its Canadian users as it assesses possible responses to the bill. The change applies to its ubiquitous search engine as well as the Discover feature on Android devices, which carries news and sports stories.

All types of news content are being affected by the test, which will run for about five weeks, the company said. That includes content created by Canadian broadcasters and newspapers.

“We’re briefly testing potential product responses to Bill C-18 that impact a very small percentage of Canadian users,” Google spokesman Shay Purdy said in a written statement on Wednesday in response to questions from The Canadian Press.

The company runs thousands of tests each year to assess any potential changes to its search engine, he added.

“We’ve been fully transparent about our concern that C-18 is overly broad and, if unchanged, could impact products Canadians use and rely on every day,” Purdy said.

A spokeswoman for Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canadians will not be intimidated and called it disappointing that Google is borrowing from Meta’s playbook. Last year, that company threatened to block news off its site in response to the bill.

“This didn’t work in Australia, and it won’t work here because Canadians won’t be intimidated. At the end of the day, all we’re asking the tech giants to do is compensate journalists when they use their work,” spokeswoman Laura Scaffidi said in a statement Wednesday.

“Canadians need to have access to quality, fact-based news at the local and national levels, and that’s why we introduced the Online News Act. Tech giants need to be more transparent and accountable to Canadians.”

Rodriguez has argued the bill, which is similar to a law that Australia passed in 2021, will “enhance fairness” in the digital news marketplace by creating a framework and bargaining process for online behemoths to pay media outlets.

But Google expressed concerns in a Parliament committee that the prospective law does not require publishers to adhere to basic journalistic standards, that it would favor large publishers over smaller outlets and that it could result in the proliferation of “cheap, low quality, clickbait content” over public interest journalism.

The company has said it would rather pay into a fund, similar to the Canada Media Fund, that would pay news publishers indirectly.

The bill passed the Canadian House of Commons in December and is set to be studied in the Senate in the coming months.
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Participants at a global U.N. conference in France’s capital on Wednesday urged the international community to find better safeguards against online disinformation and hate speech.

Hundreds of officials, tech firm representatives, academics and members of civil society were invited to the two-day meeting hosted by the United Nation’s cultural fund to brainstorm how to best vet content while upholding human rights.

“Digital platforms have changed the way we connect and face the world, the way we face each other,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in opening remarks.

But “only by fully evaluating this technological revolution can we ensure it is a revolution that does not compromise human rights, freedom of expression and democracy.”

UNESCO has warned that despite their benefits in communication and knowledge sharing, social media platforms rely on algorithms that “often prioritize engagement over safety and human rights.”

Filipina investigative journalist Maria Ressa, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for exposing abuses under former president Rodrigo Duterte, said social media had allowed lies to flourish.

“Our communication systems today are insidiously manipulating us,” she told attendees.

“We focus only on content moderation. It’s like there is a polluted river. We take a glass … we clean up the water and then dump it back,” she said.

But “what we have to do is to go all the way to the factory polluting the river, shut it down and then resuscitate the river.”

She said that at the height of online campaigns against her for her work, she had received up to 98 hate messages an hour.

A little over half sought to undermine her credibility as a journalist, including false claims that she peddled “fake news,” she said.

The rest were personal attacks targeting her gender, “skin color and sexuality” or even “threats of rape and murder.”

‘This must stop’

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula earlier addressed the conference in a letter, after disgruntled supporters of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro on January 8 invaded the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court in Brasilia.

“What happened that day was the culmination of a campaign initiated much before, and that used as ammunition, lies and disinformation,” he said.

“To a large extent, this campaign was nurtured, organized and disseminated through several digital platforms and messaging apps,” he added.

“This must stop. The international community needs, from now on, to work to give effective answers to this challenging question of our times.”

Facebook whistleblower Christopher Wylie also contributed to the discussions.

The data scientist has revealed how he helped Cambridge Analytica, founded by former U.S. president Donald Trump’s former right-hand man Steve Bannon, to use unauthorized personal data harvested from Facebook to help swing a string of elections, including Trump’s U.S. presidential win in 2016.

“Many countries around the world have issued or are currently considering national legislation to address the spread of harmful content,” UNESCO said in a statement ahead of the conference.

But “some of this legislation risks infringing the human rights of their populations, particularly the right to freedom of expression and opinion,” it warned.

 
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