Lol, what do they expect to be done about this? Is the government supposed to force Facebook to show their content, yet also pay to do it? I hate Facebook but I’m so glad they’re doing this because link taxes are fucking stupid.
Yeah, I am not Canadian so I’m sure there’s some information/nuance I don’t understand here, but from what I can tell from looking at a few articles from different sources:
Canadian government passes a law that would require Facebook to pay and/or share ad revenue for every link out (posted by the media outlet, not by Facebook) to an external news website
Facebook says they don’t want to do that, and will stop showing news links to comply with the law
Canadian government says “no not like that” and now wants to force them to allow links to news outlets, which de facto forces them to pay/share revenue with those media outlets
Like I said, I’m assuming there may be something I’m missing here, so please any kind Canadians who can help fill in the blanks would be appreciated
It’s not the government that wants to force them, it’s the media outlets that lobbied for this law in the first place that are trying to claw back a win after they called a bluff and lost.
Yes, the government is also upset about the outcome despite being warned about it beforehand, but they know that Facebook hasn’t broken any laws.
But even setting aside the question of whether link taxes are a good idea, I don’t understand why they’re making a – what to me sounds dubious – antitrust argument. It seems like a simply bizarre angle.
If the Canadian government wants news aggregators to pay a percentage of income to news companies, I would assume that they can just tax news aggregators – not per link to Canadian news source, but for operating in a market at all – take the money and then subsidize Canadian news sources. It may or may not be a good idea economically, but it seems like it’d be on considerably firmer footing than trying to use antitrust law to bludgeon news aggregators into taking actions that would trigger a link tax by aggregating Canadian news sources.
This is the real problem. Corporate taxes are frighteningly low and Canada can no longer afford to subsidize domestic industries out of corporate tax revenue.
Lol, what do they expect to be done about this? Is the government supposed to force Facebook to show their content, yet also pay to do it? I hate Facebook but I’m so glad they’re doing this because link taxes are fucking stupid.
Yeah, I am not Canadian so I’m sure there’s some information/nuance I don’t understand here, but from what I can tell from looking at a few articles from different sources:
Canadian government passes a law that would require Facebook to pay and/or share ad revenue for every link out (posted by the media outlet, not by Facebook) to an external news website
Facebook says they don’t want to do that, and will stop showing news links to comply with the law
Canadian government says “no not like that” and now wants to force them to allow links to news outlets, which de facto forces them to pay/share revenue with those media outlets
Like I said, I’m assuming there may be something I’m missing here, so please any kind Canadians who can help fill in the blanks would be appreciated
It’s not the government that wants to force them, it’s the media outlets that lobbied for this law in the first place that are trying to claw back a win after they called a bluff and lost.
Yes, the government is also upset about the outcome despite being warned about it beforehand, but they know that Facebook hasn’t broken any laws.
I don’t like the idea of link taxes myself.
But even setting aside the question of whether link taxes are a good idea, I don’t understand why they’re making a – what to me sounds dubious – antitrust argument. It seems like a simply bizarre angle.
If the Canadian government wants news aggregators to pay a percentage of income to news companies, I would assume that they can just tax news aggregators – not per link to Canadian news source, but for operating in a market at all – take the money and then subsidize Canadian news sources. It may or may not be a good idea economically, but it seems like it’d be on considerably firmer footing than trying to use antitrust law to bludgeon news aggregators into taking actions that would trigger a link tax by aggregating Canadian news sources.
This is the real problem. Corporate taxes are frighteningly low and Canada can no longer afford to subsidize domestic industries out of corporate tax revenue.
I think you’re onto something here.