Some reflections on the Australian experience and what they might mean for Canada.
After Google’s move on Thursday, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez sent a written statement calling the companies’ moves “deeply irresponsible and out of touch … especially when they make billions of dollars off of Canadian users” with advertising.
Australia’s regulatory experiment – the first of its kind in the world – also got off to a rocky start, but it has since seen tech companies, news publishers and the government reach a middle ground.
They want to make an example of Canada… When companies have enough power to even think about trying and make an example out of a country then they need to be dismantled or, even better, nationalized because it means they’re important enough to be considered utilities.
At this point I would support not backing down purely to set an example of our own.
Exactly. There are obvious problems with this conundrum and the government’s move is not ideal but then the situation we’re in is also not ideal. The implications of leaving it unmitigated are eating into our democracy and without a functioning democracy, there’s no functioning world wide web. And so as a firm supporter of the WWW, I find myself having to stick for our government and our media oligopoly (🤢) on this one even if it’s not ideal from the WWW lens. It feels a bit like chemotherapy. We have to do it even if we harm some systems because otherwise many more systems will go. 🤷
Reminds me of the classic Onion headline
“Facebook to discuss plans to regulate government over fears it has become too powerful.”